Moscow - Russian police have raided an erotica museum in St Petersburg and confiscated a painting showing a naked Vladimir Putin with an erect penis squaring off at his equally naked US counterpart Barack Obama, a curator said on Wednesday.

The raid on the museum, which describes itself as one of the largest erotica museums in Europe, took place on Tuesday night ahead of Obama's expected arrival in Russia's second city to take part in the G20 summit later this week.

The museum's curator, Alexander Donskoi, said the museum was temporarily shut down, suggesting that the gesture was political.

“I do not understand why it's necessary to mix arts and politics,” he told AFP.

Besides a vast array of erotic paraphernalia, the museum featured a picture dubbed “The Standoff between Russia and America”.