The Russian government has ordered the study and report before next June 15th, of the viability of reopening in Moscow the Museum of Western Art, first established in 1923 and closed in 1948 despite holding one of the world's most important collections of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century art. The revival of the legendary institution would require St. Petersburg's Hermitage to return to the Russian capital works by Manet, Renoir, Monet, Rodin, Cézanne, Picasso, Van Gogh, Chagall, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, Pissarro, Gauguin, Delacroix, Goya, and Degas, among many others, according to EFE, the Spanish news agency.
The Moscow museum was established with the collections of its sponsors Ivan Morozov y Serguei Shiukin, which were later distributed between the Hermitage and the Pushkin Fine Arts State Museum, currently responsible for the country's best collection of Western art.
The final decision regarding this initiative will be made public soon.