Four exceptionally valuable French Impressionist paintings arrive in Dublin today and will be on public exhibition from next Thursday.
Manet's Eva Gonzalez, Renoir's Les Parapluies and pictures by Berthe Morisot and Camille Pissarro form part of the Lane Bequest, ownership of which has been disputed between Britain and Ireland for the past 85 years.
In November 1993 the two governments reached an agreement whereby the majority of the pictures - 31 out of 39 - would stay in Dublin at all times. The remaining eight have been divided into two sections and alternate between the National Gallery in London and the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art here.
When the four new paintings arrive at the Municipal Gallery today, they will be hung in place of those which are to be dispatched to London later this week - one work apiece by Monet, Manet, Degas and Vuillard.
All the pictures were originally collected by Sir Hugh Lane, who in 1908 had founded the first gallery in Britain and Ireland dedicated to modern art. This followed his discovery of French Impressionism three years earlier while on a visit to Paris with the painter William Orpen.
At the time Lane intended to donate his private collection to the new institution. But a dispute with Dublin Corporation arose when a permanent home for the pictures could not be agreed. In late 1913, believing his plans for the gallery were doomed to failure, Lane wrote a will in which he left the French pictures to London's Tate Gallery.
The following year, however, he was appointed director of the National Gallery of Ireland and changed his mind about an eventual home for his paintings, writing a codicil to the earlier will in which the works were once more given to Dublin. Regrettably, this codicil was never witnessed and so, after Lane drowned on the Lusitania in May 1915, it had no legal validity.
A long and often acrimonious debate over ownership then ensued, resolved by successive agreements between the British and Irish governments in 1959, 1979 and, most recently, 1993.
With each of these, more paintings have been left permanently in Dublin. But it seems unlikely that they will ever all find a home in this State due to the great worth of the eight Impressionist pictures which must still be shared.
Painted between 1881 and 1886, Renoir's Les Parapluies, for example, is described by the Municipal Gallery director, Ms Barbara Dawson, as "one of the most famous images in art history; its significance cannot be underestimated and therefore it is wonderful for people in Ireland to see the painting again."
Similarly, Manet's La Musique aux Tuileries, which now goes to London, is of considerable importance in the history of Impressionist art.
It will be seen in Dublin again only after November 2005, when the Renoir travels back across the Irish Sea.