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Serguei Shtukin (1854-1936) was probably the greatest collector of modern paintings at the turn of the 20th Century. This industrialist notably went in 1893 to Paris, where his brother Ivan had befriended many artists, including Degas, Renoir and Redon.

Ivan Shtukin eventually committed suicide on learning that his Greco paintings were fakes. His brother Serguei started to buy works by Forain, Spanish artist Zuloaga, Monet (13 paintings), Cézanne, 16 paintings by Gauguin, others by Degas and Derain, 51 works from Picasso and 38 from Matisse to whom he had been introduced by the dealer Ambroise Vollard.

Serguei Shtukin asked Matisse to produce two monumental works for his house in Moscow, «The Dance» and «The Music». At first the collector refused to have nudes as he considered these as shocking but eventually changed his mind a month later after finding Matisse's work utterly beautiful. In 1918 his collection was confiscated by the new Soviet authorities and was shared by the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg and the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

Shtukin, who died in Paris after he fled the Soviet Union, was considered to have gathered the most complete collection of modern paintings in the world well before some great American collectors such as Dr Barnes.

André-Marc Delocque-Fourcaud, Shtshukin's grand-son, is now trying to recover the collection or at least some important pieces as it had been confiscated without any indemnity in return. According present laws in democratic countries, they are considered as stolen.

Infuriated by the fact that major exhibitions sponsored by powerful commercial companies are serving to promote the pillaging of the Soviet government, André-Marc Delocque-Fourcaud said his grand-father had assembled his collection so that artists and the public could enjoy it and added that his battle was not aimed at penalising museum visitors and art lovers.

«I thus waited for the end of this exhibition in Italy to ask for the seizure of one painting out of the 45 shown at the Quirinal,» he stated.

«I have chosen «The Dance» by Matisse as I consider this work to be the symbol of the mercantile exploitation of our collection through postcards, scarves, ashtrays and other objects at the expense of rights which also belong to the heirs of Serguei Shtukin. «The Dance» is being despised, dishonoured and treated like a prostitute», he told the French daily «Le Figaro».

He said that his mother never accepted the spoliation suffered by her father but it remains to be seen whether a court action can succeed.

André-Marc Delocque-Fourcaud believes it can as it will be based on a will made by his grand-father in 1926 in which he appointed his children as his residuary legatees. As a result he feels to be in a rightful position to claim the collection despite the principle imposed by international relations.

Irina Shtukin had already tried in 1954 to recover 34 works by Picasso that were at that time exhibited in Paris. She failed but the exhibition was interrupted and the works were sent back at once to the Soviet Union.

In 1993, she seized a Paris court following the exhibition of eight paintings by Matisse in the Pompidou Museum on the basis that reproduction rights, according to French laws, belonged to the owner of these works before the April 1910 law, which transferred rights to the painter and his family or heirs. She however suspended her action in order not to penalise visitors of the exhibition while the court later rejected her request because she had not yet managed to bring proof that the collection was her true property. This would have led to a contradictory debate on the validity of the Soviet confiscation of 1918.

Irina Shtukin then seized justice a few weeks later lodging a complaint against Russia and the Hermitage and Pushkin museums in order to ask for the seizure of 25 paintings by Matisse that were exhibited in the Pompidou Museum but she withdrew her complaint after the head of the Hermitage Museum threatened to cancel all exhibitions held abroad concerning the collection.