Bloomberg’s John Varoli reports that the Russian government has set up a commission to review the legality of the Soviet Union’s sale of artworks from the country’s museums before World War II, the director of the State Hermitage Museum said yesterday. Of the hundreds of paintings sold from the Hermitage Museum in the late 1920s and early ‘30s, about twenty of them eventually went to help create the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. “President Medvedev has entrusted a commission to raise and study the question to what extent the Soviet government’s sale of artworks from museum collections was legal according to existing laws at that time,” Mikhail Piotrovsky said during his annual state-of-the-museum report in St. Petersburg. After the Bolsheviks seized power in November 1917 they nationalized private property, including artworks from aristocratic collections and churches. Among these were masterpieces of West European art, Faberge objects, jewelry, silver, and icons. The Soviet government sold some works to foreign collectors to raise hard currency. These included Raphael’s The Alba Madonna, which American collector and secretary of the treasury Andrew W. Mellon bought from the Soviets in 1931. The painting was previously in the Hermitage. In 2004, The Alba Madonna was exhibited in the Hermitage for the first time since its sale by the Soviets. At that time, Piotrovsky said the legality of the painting’s sale was not in question. This guarantee was important for the exhibition to go ahead. How exactly the Kremlin plans to pursue this issue is unclear. Piotrovsky has said he is against restitution. “The Hermitage has no plans to demand the return of artworks from anyone,” said Piotrovsky. “This is not possible today. However, we plan to resist attempts to make us return items, whether it is Germany or the Russian Orthodox Church, which have claims against Russian museums. Museum items, wherever they are, should remain in their museum collections.” Piotrovsky was perhaps referring to German claims asking Russia to return artworks that Soviet troops looted during and after World War II.