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They've had massive success with their Monet and Aztec exhibitions and now the Royal Academy of Art has announced that London will play host to a blockbuster show set for the New Year.

'From Russia' is a landmark display of more than 120 paintings loaned from Russia's four main museums, including the Pushkin in Moscow and the Hermitage in St Petersburg.

The show will feature paintings by Renoir, C茅zanne and Van Gogh alongside work by Russian artists such as Kandinsky, Tatlin and Malevich, many of whom will be seen in London for the first time.

As entertainment correspondent Brenda Emmanus explains here in a special report from the former capital of the Russian empire, the Hermitage in particular is renowned for the quality and size of its collection.

It has over 3m exhibits, from Rembrandt to Picasso, that survey the main directions in modern art.

timely

She also reveals that Henri Matisse's 1910 canvas The Dance is expected to make the journey to London, and will form part of what curator Ann Dumas describes as a "spectacular group of French post-Impressionist paintings".

Brenda Emmanus in the Hermitage

"This is the first time a British audience will be able to get such a broad view of the late 19th and early 20th century period," says Ms Dumas.

Our correspondent describes the exhibition as "a real coup" due to the unparalleled access the Royal Academy has been given by Russia's principal museums.

The show is also timely and comes as London continues to enjoy an increasing empathy with Russian culture.

"The two-way exchanges are building up significantly," agrees James Kennedy of the British Council in Moscow, who you can also hear in our report.

Use the video link at the top of the page to see the report in full. From Russia is at the Royal Academy from 26 January 2008.