An international specialist discussed the topic of the restitution of artworks in Poland in the European context. Within the framework of the conference three main topics were addressed during three panels. The participants ha also an opportunity to take part in workshops on provenance and in a field session at the Wawel Royal Castle.

Opening – see the photos

The conference was organised in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

We recommend the article which appeared in the New York Times on 8th May 2014 by Ginanne Brownell entitled "New Arms for Fighting Back Against the Looters". New technology and methods for finding lost works of art, which are used by foreign institutions, were presented in the article.Moreover, the Lost Museum project was also mentioned, which this year celebrated  its 5th edition. The premier of the newest film will take place on Museum Night.

The recovered painting, “The Palace Steps” by Francesco Guardi can be seen on permanent exhibition at the National Museum in Warsaw from 15th April 2014. The piece is one of the most precious works currently in Polish collections.

Prof. Małgorzata Omilanowska, under-secretary in the  Ministry of Culture and National Heritage placed an inventory number on the back of the painting.

Paintings registered in database of polish wartime losses conducted by Division for Looted Art will appear in the popular mobile application DailyArt.

During next month - from 15.10 to 9.11 - every Wednesday and Sunday, one of the looted artwork together with information about the circumstances of its loss and a link to the database: www.lootedart.gov.pl will be presented. 

Application DailyArt daily publishes one work of art, along with a brief description and links to further sources. To date it has been used by 120 thousand people, of which over 60% are residents of the United States. It has two language versions​​: English and Polish. Both versions can be downloaded for free in the App Store and Google Play: www.getdailyart.com.

The painting by Aleksander Gierymski, “The bust of a man in a renaissance outfit”, which was lost in the second world war has been recovered. This yet another piece which has been found thanks to the efforts of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The official handing over of the painting to the National Museum in Warsaw - with Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski in attendance - took place on 7th May 2014.

Looted during the war, the Francesco Guardi painting “Palace Stairs”, was returned to the Director of the National Museum in Warsaw, Agnieszka Morawinski. The Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Bogdan Zdrojewski and the Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski attended the  ceremony, which took place on 3rd April 2014. The return of the painting is one of the most important, successfully completed restitutional cases of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.The ceremony where the Guardi painting was returnedThe Francesco Guardi painting “Palace Stairs” is an oil painting measuring 32.8cm x 25.8cm. Since 1949 it has been listed in successive publications of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, which show cultural property looted from Poland from 1939-1945. It was also registered in the database of objects lost as a result of the Second World War, which is run by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Since 1925, the painting belonged to the National Museum in Warsaw and until the outbreak of the war it adorned the gallery of foreign art. At the end of November 1939, the canvas was requisitioned and transported to the storehouse in the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow. It never returned to the museum. In 1943 it was brought to Hans Frank’s headquarters in Wawel and a year later, during the evacuation of the General Governor’s Office, it was taken to the castle in Sichow in Lower Silesia. The later fortunes of the painting are unknown to the Polish authorities.

On the basis of documents found a few years ago, it seems the painting was conveyed to the storehouse of cultural property in Wiesbaden and then to the Central Collecting Point in Munich. After the war the painting’s provenance was impossible to establish. So, instead of being returned to its rightful owner, the painting ended up at Heidelberg University as an object of unknown provenance. From 1958-59 attempts were made to establish the rightful owner of the painting, ending without success.  In 1980, during redecoration of the rector’s office, a decision was made to hand the “Palace Stairs” over, as a deposit, to the Kurpfalzische Museum in Heidelberg and then to the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart where it still is till today.

In September 2010, the Department of Cultural Heritage prepared a restitutional application, which was given to the National Gallery in Stuttgart, via the National Museum in Warsaw. On 5th October 2010, the museum was informed that the matter had been passed on to the Ministry of Science and Art in Baden-Württemberg, who then asked the Federal Republic of Germany Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their opinion. On 22nd November 2011, in answer to a letter from the Ministry of Culture to Mr Bernd Neumann, agent for Culture and Media of the government of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Polish authorities were informed that the application would certainly be included in Polish-German talks regarding mitigating the effects of the second world war organised by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of both countries.

In May 2013 the case of the Guardi painting was sent for a second investigation to the law firm Raue LLP in Berlin. The Foreign Ministry was informed of the efforts to recover the painting. In connection with this information the Foreign Ministry invited the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage to a meeting on 17 July 2013. During the talks the Foreign Ministry stated that it didn’t see any barriers for the efforts of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in this area.

At the same time, the law firm Raue LLP corresponded in the case with the German Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Culture in Baden-Württemberg and the National Gallery in Stuttgart. A breakthrough in the German standpoint occurred in January 2014. After a series of press reports in Germany, which was part of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage strategy, the interested institutions admitted that they have no right to keep hold of the painting. The German Foreign Ministry declared that they would support its return. The Ministry received confirmation in writing via the lawyer representing the Polish side, Peter Raue, who is in constant contact with both Lander and Federal institutions like  the National Gallery in Stuttgart, the Ministry of Culture in Baden-Württemberg, The German Foreign Ministry and consulting regularly with the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, regarding the contents of documents and direct conversations.

During a meeting between representatives of the Ministry of Culture and national Heritage and Dr Ingeborg Berggreen-Merkel, leader of the TaskForce group and long-term deputy to Minister Berndt Neumann on 7th February 2014, it was communicated that a decision had been reached as to the return of the “Palace Steps” by Francesco Guardi to Poland.

On 13th February 2014, information appeared on the Foreign Ministry website regarding a telephone conversation between Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, during which Minister Steinmeier informed minister Sikorski about the decision to return the painting to Poland. Then, on 28th March 2014, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage was informed that on 31st March the painting would be conveyed at a meeting in Berlin between the two ministers for Foreign Affairs.

The second painting stolen from St Martin’s Church in Siciny (Lower Silesia) is still being searched for. In the theft, carried out sometime between 1987 and 1996, 2 out of 15 18th century paintings presenting Rosary Mysteries were stolen. The painting, “The Ascension”, was found in a US internet auction in October 2012 and on 16th April 2014 there was a ceremony in the Royal Castle in Warsaw, where the painting was handed over to the priest serving the parish of St Martins in Siciny, father Tadeusz Śliwka.

The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage is completing the restitution process regarding the Francesco Guardi painting “Palace Stairs” which had been looted from Poland during the Second World War. The piece can currently be found in the National Gallery in Stuttgart. The ministry has been working its return for many years and it is hoped that the painting will be back in Poland within the next few months. This is one of the most important restitution cases run by the Ministry of Culture.

Since 1949, Francesco Guardi’s painting has been listed in consecutive publications about cultural goods transported from Poland between 1939 and 1945. It was also registered in the database of wartime losses run by the Division for Looted Art. In 2010, the department of Cultural Heritage prepared a restitution application, which was submitted via the National Museum In Warsaw – the pre-war owner of the painting. After a few years of work, the case was passed on to the German lawyer, Peter Raue, who had represented the ministry during the recovery of The Jewess with oranges by Aleksander Gierymski and A Negress by Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz.

Among others, the daily, "Der Tagesspiegel", wrote about the Guardi case. German press reports, particularly in the context of the recently recovered works of art from Cornelius Gurlitt which had been looted by Nazis, as well as multiple appeals, conversations and efforts of the Polish Ministry of Culture regarding the recovery of the painting, brought about a breakthrough in the case. On 24th January last year, the previous secretary of state in the Ministry of Culture in Baden Wurttenburg, Juergen Walter, told the TV station 3Sat, that Poland could count on the return of the “Palace Stairs” by Francesco Gaudi, which had been stolen during the war by Germans. “We have no right to keep this work of art,” added the Green party politician. In his view, Poland could count on the fact that Germans “in the near future” would return the painting. It may return to Poland this year.

“Palace Stairs” by Francesco Gaudi is an oil painting measuring 32,8 x 25,8 cm. On 13 March 1925 it was bought by the National Museum in Warsaw from the collector Leon Kranc. Until the outbreak of the Second World War, the work was exhibited in the museum building at 15 Podwale St in Warsaw.In the summer of 1939, in the face of the approaching war, the painting was moved to the museum basement. Soon after the capture of Warsaw by the German army, the systematic requisitioning and transport of cultural goods started. At around the end of November 1939, the Francesco Guardi painting was transported to the storehouse of the Office of the Special Representative for Protection of Art and Cultural Goods in the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow and from there was transported to the headquarters of Hans Frank in Wawel Castle. One year later, during the evacuation of the General Governor’s Office it was transported, together with other valuable works, like yet to be recovered “The Portrait of a Young Man” by Raphael and “The Lady with an Ermine” by Leonardo Da Vinci, to the castle of Count Manfred v. Richtofen in Sichow in south Silesia. From that time the painting’s fortunes were unknown to the Polish authorities. On the basis of documents found in German archives, it seems the painting was conveyed to the storehouse of cultural property in Wiesbaden on 24th December and then to the Central Collecting Point in Munich. Instead of being returned to its rightful owner the painting ended up at Heidelberg University as an object of unknown provenance. In 1980, the “Palace Stairs” were handed over as a deposit to the Kurpfalzische Museum in Heidelberg and then to the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart where it still is till today.

The stolen during World War II painting of Oswald Achenbach Via Cassia near Rome from 1878 returned to the National Museum in Wroclaw. The celebration of handing over of the found work, which was attended by Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland Małgorzata Omilanowska, was held on August 7 this year (Thursday) at. 12.00 p.m. at the seat of the Museum.

The recovered panting is from a pre-war collection of the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts in Wroclaw. It found its way to the museum collection in 1907, in accordance with the last will of Conrad Fisher. This Wroclaw art collector donated to the Museum a collection of approximately 100 paintings and several sculptures. It was one of the most valuable gifts the Wroclaw facility received, which consisted mainly of paintings from the second fifty years of the nineteenth century, collected by the collector with the intention of supplementing the museum collection. Handing over such a rich collection to the museum was also described by the local newspaper.

After the outbreak of World War II preparations for securing the collection was undertaken. Since 1942 transportation of works of art to the previously designated depots in Silesia has begun. The action of securing was led by the Lower Silesia conservator prof. Günther Grundmann. The preserved archives clearly show that the canvas of O. Achenbach has been exported to the repository of works of art in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki (Kamenz). On February 4, 1946, pastor Schultheiss, guardian of the repository, discovered the repository had been burgled, during which more than 100 paintings disappeared. The Via Cassia near Rome painting was probably among them. In fact, it was not found by the Polish evacuation crew, which reached the repository on February 10, 1946. From that moment it was considered to be a loss of the war and was the subject of search of the Polish side.

The fate of the antique remained unknown until May 2014, when the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage found the painting at an auction in the Van Ham auction house in Cologne. The success is even greater, because it is the fruit of application by the Ministry of Culture of new tools to actively seek war losses. Using specialized websites the Ministry of Culture constantly monitors the art market.

Sequentially, steps to identify the painting were undertaken. On 14 May 2014 at the premises of the Van Ham auction house an expert from the National Museum in Wroclaw conducted an examination of the painting. On its basis, the opinion has been prepared, indisputably confirming that we were dealing with a work from the pre-war Silesian Museum of Fine Arts in Wroclaw. The expert opinion was based on the conservation study of the face of the painting and the analysis of proprietary markings placed on the reverse.

The work’s rapid return to the Wroclaw collection was possible due to the civic attitude of the holder of the painting. After getting acquainted with the documentation prepared by the Division of Wartime Losses of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, which concluded that it came from war looting, he decided to return the canvas. This person wishes to remain anonymous. Efficient conduct of the regenerative proceedings is also a result of an open attitude and professionalism of the Van Ham auction house in Cologne.

The entire procedure of recovering the painting was conducted by the Division of Wartime Losses of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland. On behalf of the Ministry of Culture of Poland this cell is engaged in gathering information about cultural property lost as a result of World War II, running all-Poland database of wartime losses, the search for cultural property lost as a result of World War II and its restitution.

The only all-Poland registry of movable cultural property lost as a result of World War II from the territory of Poland after 1945 can be found at www.dzielautracone.gov.pl It is a site dedicated to wartime losses launched by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland. The main part of the site is steadily growing catalogue of recovered works.

The handing over of yet another work of art recovered by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in cooperation with the Polish Embassy in Washington and the Foreign Ministry took place on 16th April 2014 in the New Deputies’ Chamber in the Royal Castle in Warsaw. One of a series of 15 paintings portraying rosary secrets, by Michael Willmann (17th century painter called the Silesian Rembrandt) according to sources, the painting comes from St Martin’s Church in Siciny (Lower Silesia). Secretary of State in the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and General Conservator of Monuments, Piotr Żuchowski took part in the press conference.

From the left: Douglas Greene - Vice Ambassador of USA in Poland, Bogdan Zdrojewski – minister of Culture and National Heritage, Michael Shea – Attaché Homeland Security Investigations, Office for International Cases, David Riccio – vice Attaché Homeland Security Investigations, Małgorzata Omilanowska – vice minister Culture and National Heritage, Jacek Miler – director of the Department of National Heritage in the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Photo - Danuta MatlochThe painting, “St. Philip Baptising A Servant Of Queen Kandaki” by the well known German artist, Johann Conrad Seekatz, and stolen from the National Museum in Warsaw during the Second World War, was returned to Poland from the USA. On 12 February 2014, the Minister of Culture, Bogdan Zdrojewski, handed the picture over to the Director of the National Museum in Warsaw, Dr Agnieszka Morawińska. The recovered painting is an oil painting on tinplate presenting a characteristic theme from the Acts of the Apostles. The painter was a respected German artist who painted in the 18th century in Germany, as a court artist in Darmstadt.

The picture came from the collection of Piotr Fiorentini (1791-1858), a Polish officer, civil servant and collector, who left his collection to the School of Fine Art in Warsaw. Next, the painting ended up in the collection of the Museum of Fine Art, which went on to become the National Museum in Warsaw. At the beginning of the 20th Century, the painting was exhibited in the gallery in its temporary location on Wierzbowa St. Up until the outbreak of the Second World War, the painting was in the museum building. Its fortunes during the war are unknown. It is thought that it stayed in the museum until 1944. After the German army took Warsaw, the procedure of looting and destruction of works of art began and lasted throughout the occupation. The looting reached its peak in the first year of the war 1939-40 and also after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising in October 1944. It was particularly in this second period that many monuments were destroyed or stolen. Among them was probably the painting by Johann Conrad Seekatz.  “St. Philip Baptising A Servant Of Queen Kandaki” was conveyed to Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski by the Americans on 6th February 2014 in the Polish Consulate in New York.

The recovery of the painting was possible thanks to cooperation between the governments of Poland and the USA, in other words, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Polish Embassy in Washington and the US Homeland Security Investigations, to be exact.In 2011, as a result of an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations, it was established that  the painting had been sold at an auction house in New York in 2006 and then ended up in a gallery in London. An expert delegation from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage went to London and confirmed that the painting was indeed on the list of Polish Wartime Losses. On the basis of documentation prepared by the ministry, the complicated administrative-legal procedure was started allowing for the painting to be returned to the USA and then conveyed to Poland. Two years ago, thanks to the joint efforts of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the HSI, two paintings by Julian Falat were returned to Poland; "Naganka na polowaniu w Nieświeżu” (Hunting Chase in Nieswiezu) and „Przed polowaniem w Rytwianach” (Before the hunt in Rytwiany), which were found in 2006 in New York auction houses.