Paris: While the relationship between Russia and France often feels like frozen like Siberia Tundra, there is one area where diplomacy works better than art.
Leading the lead is the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, owned by Luxury Group LVMH, which has done two blockbusters withdrawn from the Russian collection.
Horde Sergei Shchukin from classic paintings brings a record 1.3 million visitors to the museum in 2017.
And the Morozov collection is even more famous full of around 200 treasures by people like Van Gogh, Gauguin, Renisse and Monet have become a big hit others since opened in September.
In a broader import mark, this catalog displays prefaces by Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin.
Russian leaders wrote “bridges that have been built by artists and art lovers among our countries”, while Macron said they “underlined our traditional traditional relationships”.
This is a bit of a Bonhomie between two leaders, more usually seen violating the head over conflict in Ukraine and Syria, political interference and virtual world attacks.
“Culture and art occupy a special place in diverse and intense relationships between Russia and France, regardless of all bends of history and turn, and serious differences between our countries,” a foreign ministry spokesman in Moscow told AFP.
– Historical ties – Russia and France have long imagined themselves as a twin pillar of European culture.
From the enlightenment philosophers, Denis was solder with Catherine The Great, to Tsar Nicholas II laying the foundation stone for the Alexander III Bridge in Paris, players currently like the feeling that they are building a long cultural exchange.
Catherine Pegard, who runs the Chateau de Versailles, admitted that she was very aware of diplomatic significance when she organized the exhibition around the 300-year anniversary of Paris’s visit to Paris.
The event ended up being a reason for Putin to visit France himself in 2017, where the newly chosen Macron took the opportunity to launch a new round of business talks.
As usual, it is a personal relationship that lubricates the wheel behind the scenes.
Jean-Paul Claverie, an advisor to the CEO of Lvmh Bernard Arnault, happened to be a personal friend with Shchukin’s grandson from the days they worked at the French Ministry of Culture.
But a large amount of money is also an important material.
Unlike public institutions, LVMH can obtain extensive insurance premiums and the cost of restoration needed to deceive Shchukin and Morozov show (the last center of Van Gogh, “prison page”, not previously on a ragged screen).
You also need some very healthy cash reserves to swallow the risk of a messy show at the last minute.
“The two projects almost did not occur,” Claverierie told AFP.
It took a private meeting between his boss and Putin in 2016 to seal the agreement, and won the cooperation of the Hermitage Museum and Pushkin that had never been before, and the Tretiakov gallery.