Immunity from seizure for loaned artworks
Legal protection preventing seizure, by a creditor or claimant, of a work lent by a foreign state or institution for a public exhibition, a condition lenders often impose.
A painting lent by a foreign museum for a few months becomes, on the borrower's territory, seizable property: a creditor of the lending state or the heirs of a former owner may try to have it seized to obtain payment or restitution. To keep loans possible, several states have adopted immunity from seizure regimes: in France, a ministerial order published before the exhibition makes the designated works immune from seizure for the duration of the loan. Without this protection, some lenders, notably states exposed to litigation, refuse to lend. The mechanism sits at the junction of fine art and political risk: it protects the loan against interstate litigation, but not against a decision of the borrowing state itself, for example applying sanctions, which lenders' insurers read carefully.
At the end of the Morozov collection exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in April 2022, France held back, under European sanctions, loaned works belonging to sanctioned individuals, while pieces from Russian museums, covered by immunity from seizure, were sent back.
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