I’d forgotten that this guy was still looking to get his money.

Bailiffs, backed by police, stopped lorries taking the
paintings back to Moscow’s Pushkin Fine Arts Museum after a five-month
exhibition in Martigny.

The seizure was the result
of a court order won by Nessim Gaon, 83, a Sudanese-born Jew, now a
Swiss national, who served in the British Army during the Second World
War.

Mr Gaon claims the Russian government owes
his company, Noga, hundreds of millions of pounds after it reneged on a
1992 deal in which Noga supplied it with food in exchange for oil. A
Stockholm arbitration court ordered Moscow to pay Noga £70 million in
1996 but Moscow has quibbled over the terms of repayment.

Mr
Gaon has used extraordinary tactics to secure his money. After a 2001
court ruling he seized the Russian ship Sedov, the world’s second
largest sailing vessel, during a goodwill visit to Brest.

Later that year he almost seized two Russian fighters at an air show in Le Bourget. The pilots flew to safety just before the bailiffs arrived.

Fearing a repetition, the Russian air force has not taken part in any air shows in western Europe since.

What makes this particular piece all so amusing is this:

This time, however, Mr Gaon was up against an equally
fiery octogenarian: Irina Antonova, also 83, the Pushkin museum’s
director since 1961. "This is a totally illegal act and the method of
doing it is barbaric and uncivilised," she said before the works were
released. "Art shouldn’t be held hostage to economic or political
disputes between states."

But there will be some figures in the art world, particularly in Germany, who may feel satisfaction at yesterday’s drama.

Many
works of art were seized by the Red Army from Germany after the fall of
Berlin in 1945 as spoils of war. Among those involved in transporting
them back to Moscow was the young Mrs Antonova.

Russian
authorities refused to admit that most of the art was in their
possession until 1994 and the dispute strained relations with Germany
for years.

The fine art of Russian negotiating. What’s ours is ours and what’s yours is negotiable.