An art exhibition that has become a pawn in the diplomatic game between London and the Kremlin could go ahead after the British Government agreed to fast-track legislation to appease Moscow.

The show of rarely seen French and Russian masterpieces is due to open at the Royal Academy of Arts in London on January 26. It looked doomed yesterday morning, when Roskultura, the Russian state culture agency, said that it could not accept guarantees offered by British ministers about the security of the artworks, and formally cancelled the show.

However, in an extraordinary response indicative of the show’s importance to relations, the Government announced that it would fast-track antiseizure legislation in an Act that it believes will satisfy the Russians.

James Purnell, the Culture Secretary, said a provision of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, which has been approved by Parliament but is not due to come into force until February, would become effective after Parliament returns next month. He said the Government had been “prepared to go the extra mile” to maintain cultural dialogue.

Ostensibly, the dispute has been about the security of more than 120 paintings including masterpieces by Matisse, Van Gogh and Kandinsky, selected for From Russia: French and Russian Master Paintings 1870-1925 from Moscow and St Petersburg.

Vladimir Titov, the deputy Foreign Minister, said on Wednesday that there was no political motive behind the cancellation. However, in London there were serious doubts that a simple bureaucratic problem would have prompted Moscow to take such extreme measures. Curators must wait for a Russian response to the proposal.

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