MOSCOW — It was less an opportunity for artistic celebration than an occasion to hash over recriminations from World War II yesterday, as the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts flaunted a collection of artworks spirited from Germany at the end of the war.
The exhibit included paintings by Renoir, Manet, Degas, Goya, El Greco, Veronese, Tintoretto - treasures that had been stashed away in the museum for half a century, and whose existence was until recently denied by the Kremlin.
German diplomats here did not hide their dismay about the hastily scheduled exhibit of pieces that Germany believes should rightfully be returned. In particular, the embassy here protested that it was notified of the exhibit only last week.
But apologies were not forthcoming from the Russians, who still bear bitter
memories of Germany's bloody wartime invasion and the scorched-earth policy it pursued in retreat.
"You remember what damage the German fascists inflicted on our art. . . . We are of the position that such damage should be compensated," Irina A. Antonova, the Pushkin's director since 1961, declared at a contentious news conference yesterday.
In an accompanying statement, the Pushkin said the Nazis destroyed thousands of architectural monuments and more than 400 museums in its sweep through Russia, while hundreds of thousands of artworks were either ruined or stolen.
The exhibit contains 63 European works spanning the 14th through the 19th centuries, mostly paintings, but a few drawings as well. That represents about one-sixth of the Pushkin's holding of art taken from Germany, museum officials say.
The museum also is planning to exhibit early next year the so-called ''Trojan Gold," the fabulous 4,500-year-old trove of diadems, jewelry, goblets and other treasures unearthed by German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann on the site of ancient Troy.
Meanwhile, the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg has scheduled a March 30 opening of "Unknown Masterpieces of French Painting," featuring 74 paintings also seized at the end of World War II.
Until this latest dispute at the Pushkin, Germany and Russia appeared to be gliding gracefully through the gantlet of awkward World War II commemorations and the continuing dispute over the artwork.
The German government had been given ample notice of next month's opening at the Hermitage and even was cooperating with museum officials on invitations to some of the original art collectors.
