Londoners have been anticipating the arrival of Matisse's The Dancers and other treasures from Russia's Hermitage Museum, but now the paintings are caught in a diplomatic row, as reporter Sophie Grove writes from London:  

 Diplomatic wrangles almost never touch the lofty world of Art. But in London, The Royal Academy's hotly anticipated exhibition 'From Russia' is suddenly caught in the cross fire of disintegrating international relations. This week the Russian government retracted its promise to loan 120 masterpieces from the Hermitage in St Petersburg and the Pushkin museum in Moscow.

The show should have been an example of cultural diplomacy at its best. Vladimir Putin had been lined-up to write a forward to the Catalogue and was to fly over to join Prime Minister Gordon Brown for the opening ceremony in January. The works, including Matisse’s The Dance, have been splashed tantalizingly all over the London underground for months.  Now -- for the moment at least -- it's all off.

The official line is that insurance issues have prevented the works from making it to London.