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Post by Bonobo on Jul 27, 2011 19:13:09 GMT 1
During the WW2 Poland lost a lot of pieces of art. Both Germans and Soviets looted not only museums and galleries but also private collections. Many items have never been found. . This painting is a classic. I first saw it in my Art classbook to 5th year elementary school. I hadn`t known it was missing until 2010. Germany returns looted painting
27.07.2011 10:08
A painting by the prominent 19th-century Polish artist Aleksander Gierymski which was looted by the Germans from the National Museum in Warsaw has been returned to Poland.
A Jewish woman selling oranges is thought to have gone missing in the final months of the war. The painting surfaced last November when it was put up for auction in Buxtehude, Germany, but was withdrawn from sale after an intervention by the Polish Ministry of Culture, the National Museum and the Warsaw Prosecutor. The negotiations with the German side on the return of the painting started in December.
The canvass was painted in 1880-1881 during Gierymski’s stay in Warsaw.
One of the artist’s numerous genre scenes presenting the life of Jewish inhabitants of the city’s poor districts, it was included in the collection of the National Museum in 1928.
Aleksander Gierymski studied painting at the Fine Arts Academy in Munich. He is considered one of the forerunners of Polish Impressionism and spent many years in Rome, where he died in 1901, at the age of 51.
His younger brother, Mieczys³aw, was a renowned watercolour painter. |
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Post by Bonobo on Mar 11, 2012 13:49:07 GMT 1
Lost painting returns to Poland
09.03.2012 09:16
The Polish Embassy in Washington has announced that a work by one of Poland's most celebrated painters has been recovered after having disappeared without trace during the Second World War.
Witold Wojtkiewicz's The Procession (1908) had originally belonged to a Cracovian family, and it was shown at public exhibitions on several occasions prior to 1939.
The painting was registered in Poland's official catalogue of missing artworks, which is accessible online, and it turned out that the picture had found its way into the hands of an American family.
“Thanks to this catalogue and [other] information on the internet, the family - which had had the painting for over forty years – contacted the Embassy in Washington,” said First Secretary of the Polish Embassy, Anna Perl. at a press conference.
The American family, which wants to remain anonymous, says that it had obtained the painting in Sweden as a present.
News of the recovery was released to chime in with the visit of Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski to America this week.
Anna Perl revealed that the Embassy has made contact with the heirs of the pre-war owners.
“Even if it was just a for a short period of time, the ideal situation would be if the painting was taken to one of the public collections of our national museums,” she concluded.
Witold Wojtkiewicz is one of the most highly regarded painters of the so-called Young Poland movement (Mloda Polska).
He was a regular at the bohemian Green Balloon cabaret in Krakow, and a pioneer of early Expressionism. The artist was plagued by ill health and died young aged 29
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Post by Bonobo on Mar 23, 2012 1:05:04 GMT 1
A painting looted by Nazis from the National Museum collection in Warsaw during WWII has returned to Poland.
/ Murzynka (Negress - 1884) by Anna Bilinska-Bohdanowiczowa, was thought to be lost but last year the painting came up for sale at Berlin's Villa Grisebach auction house.M
The painting was due to go under the hammer on 25 November, but Poland's Ministry of Culture was tipped off about the likelihood that the work was owned by a Polish museum.
A German law firm was hired by the Ministry to manage the restitution.
The 63 x 48,5 cm oil painting had been logged in Poland's official directory of cultural heritage lost during the war, and it was also listed in the Stolen Works of Art database of international police network Interpol.
Poland was obliged to pay compensation to the German citizen who had put the picture up for sale. However, the painting has now returned to its proper home.
Anna Bilinska-Bohdanowiczowa was born 1857 and studied in Paris. She was particularly noted for her portraits of women. Her life was cut short in 1893, suffering a fatal heart attack in Warsaw, just one year after returning from the French capital.
There is no information about who the model featured in the painting is, though black models were a favourite muse at the time in Paris, particularly among the impressionists, such as Paul Cézanne.
Last year, In the Artist's Studio, by Leon Wyczolkowski (1852-1936) was returned to Poland after being stolen by german Nazis from a museum in Warsaw around 1944. |
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Post by polishmama on Mar 26, 2012 21:36:03 GMT 1
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Post by tufta on Mar 27, 2012 9:43:38 GMT 1
Thanks especially for the NYT link, I wasn't aware of that.
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Post by Bonobo on Mar 27, 2012 12:33:28 GMT 1
Thanks especially for the NYT link, I wasn't aware of that. Also CCN link is useful. edition.cnn.com/2011/09/22/us/new-york-stolen-art-returned/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
The oil-on-panels by Falat (1853-1929), both winter scenes, "are two magnificent and very important pieces of art," said Bogdan Zdrojewski, minister of culture and national heritage, in an official statement.
"Off to the Hunt" which features bundled hunters against a snowy woods backdrop, was originally displayed at the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw November 1901 before it was sold to a private owner, given back to the society, and then transferred to the Polish National Museum in December 1939, the ICE news release stated.
"The Hunt," a wintry panorama with a sun-kissed glaze, was originally owned by Ludwik Norblin before it was endowed to the same fine arts society, and later moved to the national museum, the ICE news release stated.
Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, and during the occupation of Warsaw the paintings were taken.
The paintings were missing until 2006, when they were discovered by Polish officials at an auction in New York, according to the ICE press release.
A complaint filed in federal court last December claimed they were taken from the national museum by Benne Von Arent, an SS lieutenant colonel, in 1944, according to press release from Manhattan U.S Attorney's office.  See more art by Fa³at in another thread: polandsite.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=polishfilms&action=display&thread=1464 |
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Post by Bonobo on Jan 31, 2013 23:09:44 GMT 1
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Post by tufta on Feb 2, 2013 8:37:48 GMT 1
Wow! If I understood correctly the paintings were voluntarily given back by a Warsaw collector. The issue is really serious with past losses. There are three countries which still posses massive amounts of art objects stolen from Poland - namely Russia, Sweden and Germany. I hear that the latter is slowly coming to a point of self-realization than such situation is in the longer run unacceptable and true deep alliance Germany and Poland are slowly building impossible with clearing all the past that is possible to clear. This part is possible to clear. More diffcult with Sweden, since longer time passed but there's one envoy to Sejm who begun to seriously act in that respect, forgot his name. What do you think about that, Bo? ----- Edited: should read 'without clearing'. Bo, I wanted to delete the message and repost it edited but couldn't do the deletion. Is it some bug or a permanent feature? |
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 3, 2013 9:56:38 GMT 1
Wow! If I understood correctly the paintings were voluntarily given back by a Warsaw collector.
Yes, but it was ambiguous because the police was involved so I don`t know how it went.
The issue is really serious with past losses. There are three countries which still posses massive amounts of art objects stolen from Poland - namely Russia, Sweden and Germany. I hear that the latter is slowly coming to a point of self-realization than such situation is in the longer run unacceptable and true deep alliance Germany and Poland are slowly building impossible with clearing all the past that is possible to clear.
Lost Polish items aren`t displayed in German museums and galleries openly, they are in private collections and surface from time to time.......
This part is possible to clear. More diffcult with Sweden, since longer time passed but there's one envoy to Sejm who begun to seriously act in that respect, forgot his name. What do you think about that, Bo?
....... but Russia and Sweden keep them in state museums and it is impossible to retrieve them.
Bo, I wanted to delete the message and repost it edited but couldn't do the deletion. Is it some bug or a permanent feature?
I have idea. I never blocked it in any way.
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Post by tufta on Feb 3, 2013 20:56:20 GMT 1
I have idea. I never blocked it in any way. Must been a bug. As to looted art - I am afraid you are a pessimist. There're lots of stolen items stored in German museums = possesed by German governement. These can be relatively easily given back provided Polish pressure exists to accompany the existing will to clear this uncomfortable matter in part of our neighbours' society. |
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Post by Bonobo on Dec 18, 2015 21:56:37 GMT 1
Long-lost marble bust returns to Warsaw 18.12.2015 16:13 A marble bust of the ancient goddess Diana, sculpted by Jean-Antoine Houdon, and stolen by the Nazis during WWII, has come back to the Royal Łazienki Park in Warsaw. Minister Gliński unveils the bust of Diana. Photo: PAP/Rafał GuzMinister Gliński unveils the bust of Diana. Photo: PAP/Rafał Guz  Poland's Culture Minister, Piotr Gliński, unveiled the sculpture on Friday, saying that it is a “masterpiece, which disappeared during WWII, as did many others”. The whereabouts of the masterpiece remained unknown since the war, when many prominent works from Polish collections were looted from Polish museums. It was discovered earlier this year at an auction in Vienna. Poland succeeded in getting the work back and the bust can once again be displayed in the museum of Palace on the Water in Warsaw’s Łazienki Park  - See more at: www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/233468,Longlost-marble-bust-returns-to-Warsaw#sthash.MuJvbFeB.dpuf |
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Post by Bonobo on Jan 25, 2016 21:13:13 GMT 1
Lost Polish painting tracked down
25.01.2016 12:19
A painting by Polish artist Horacy Vernet (1789-1863) has been found in a collection once owned by an art expert who worked for Adolf Hitler.
The Death of Prince Józef Poniatowski in the Battle of Leipzig.
The oil-on-canvas painting depicts the 1813 death of Prince Marshal Józef Poniatowski at the battle in Leipzig.
“Vernet’s vision was so strong that in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, it was copied in countless paintings, artworks as well as other artistic uses: on teacups, plates, cups, clocks, etc,” said the Communi Hereditate foundation, which broke the news on Monday.
According to the lostart.de website, the provenance of the painting traces it back to Maria Teresa Tyszkiewicz, née Princess Poniatowski, in Paris.
The painting is part of almost 1,400 artworks found in the apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt in Munich in 2012. Gurlitt is the son of dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt, who was assigned by Adolf Hitler to dispose of “degenerate art” confiscated by the Nazis during WWII.
The report into the haul has just been completed following over two years of painstaking research by the Task Force Schwabing Art Trove, a group of international experts assigned to the case.- See more at: www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/237924,Lost-Polish-painting-tracked-down#sthash.DoG7Igxa.dpuf
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 18, 2016 23:11:31 GMT 1
Germany returns looted treasures to Poland
18.02.2016 08:44
Two pieces of 18th century furniture have been returned from Germany to Wilanów Palace on the outskirts of Warsaw, from where they had been looted during the German occupation of Poland.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minster of Culture Piotr Gliński admires the two returned artefacts at Wilanów Palace. Photo: PAP/Rafał GuzDeputy Prime Minister and Minster of Culture Piotr Gliński admires the two returned artefacts at Wilanów Palace. Photo: PAP/Rafał Guz
They were handed over to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture and National Heritage Piotr Gliński by the Chairman of the Bundesrat, the upper house of the German Parliament, and Prime Minister of the Free State of Saxony Stanislaw Tillich at a ceremony, Wednesday, at the palace, the former residence of Polish King Jan III Sobieski.
Tillich described the event as a good contribution to the friendly cooperation between the two countries and Gliński stressed its symbolic significance.
“Thanks to the decision of the government of Saxony, the work of museologists and cooperation with the Polish side, it has been possible to achieve a common success,” Gliński said.
“It is an example of good cooperation of civilized institutions in civilised countries which approach these matters with tact and the necessary care,” he continued.
The two pieces of furniture are a Rococo desk, the work of French craftsmen dating from around 1745, and a richly-ornamented cabinet in Chinese-style (Chinoiserie) from the beginning of the 18th century, containing fifteen drawers. Both items are fine examples of the Far Eastern influences on European art of the time.
The furniture was traced thanks to the 'Daphne' inventory project carried out in the State Art Collection in Dresden. Once it was established that the items could have belonged to the collection of the Wilanów Palace, talks began with the Polish authorities on the conditions of their return. In November 2015 the government of the Free State of Saxony approved the decision to return the desk and the cabinet to Poland.
Close to 63, 000 works of art which went missing from Polish museums during World War Two have been identified so far. They include works by such masters as Rubens, Rembrandt and Durer, as well as canvases by such Polish painters as Aleksander Gierymski (47 works), Jan Matejko (36 works) and Jacek Malczewski (59 works).- See more at: www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/241236,Germany-returns-looted-treasures-to-Poland#sthash.hgr6cAin.dpuf
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 6, 2017 12:43:38 GMT 1
The National Library bought a prayer book from the 15th century at an auction in London. It is beautifully illustrated.        Made in Italy. First it belonged to an Italian merchant who came to Poland with the court of Queen Bona aroud 1500. Later it belonged to a Polish merchant Wargocki (hence the name Wargocki`s prayer book) and then to a Polish aristocratic family. It got lost around 1800 during Napoleonic wars. It is unique because such hand-made prayer books were rare in Poland at the time. It was used until the end of 16 century which was also a rarity. kulturaonline.pl/godzinki,jakuba,wargockiego,renesansowy,rekopis,powrocil,do,polski,zdjecia,tytul,artykul,27848.html |
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Post by jeanne on Feb 6, 2017 20:02:13 GMT 1
The National Library bought a prayer book from the 15th century at an auction in London. It is beautifully illustrated. Made in Italy. First it belonged to an Italian merchant who came to Poland with the court of Queen Bona aroud 1500. Later it belonged to a Polish merchant Wargocki (hence the name Wargocki`s prayer book) and then to a Polish aristocratic family. It got lost around 1800 during Napoleonic wars. It is unique because such hand-made prayer books were rare in Poland at the time. It was used until the end of 16 century which was also a rarity. kulturaonline.pl/godzinki,jakuba,wargockiego,renesansowy,rekopis,powrocil,do,polski,zdjecia,tytul,artykul,27848.html And it seems to be in remarkably fine condition! |
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 7, 2017 20:16:59 GMT 1
And it seems to be in remarkably fine condition! Such manuscripts have always been an expensive business.  |
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Post by jeanne on Feb 7, 2017 21:35:13 GMT 1
And it seems to be in remarkably fine condition! Such manuscripts have always been an expensive business. Well, they are definitely a treasure!! |
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Post by Bonobo on Mar 5, 2017 10:54:40 GMT 1
Art looted in WWII returned to Poland 27.02.2017 07:13 Three artworks which were looted by Nazis during the occupation of Poland during WWII have been returned to Kraków. The handover ceremony on Sunday. Photo: Twitter.com/ Magda OgorekThe handover ceremony on Sunday. Photo: Twitter.com/ Magda Ogorek  The artworks – a map of 17th century Poland, an engraving of Kraków during the Renaissance, as well of a painting of the city's Potocki Palace – were taken in late 1939 by the wife of SS Gruppenführer Otto Wächter. Wächter served as Nazi governor of Kraków, southern Poland, until 1944. In a ceremony on Sunday, the stolen works of art were returned by the couple's son, Horst Wächter. Poland has for decades been trying to regain some half a million works stolen by the Nazi German occupiers between 1939 and 1945. The handover was made possible due to research by historian and former presidential candidate Magdalena Ogórek, who had been in touch with the family for many months. The Rzeczpospolita daily reported that Ogórek had seen one of the prints in a picture accompanying a story about the Wächter family in the Financial Times. She then contacted the family to try and get the works back to Poland. Although there are thousands of works still at large, events such as these are very rare. “This is probably the first time that the member of a family of one of the most important Nazi occupiers is giving back art that was stolen from Poland during the war,” Ryszard Czarnecki, a Polish MEP and vice-president of the European parliament, was quoted as saying by the UK's The Guardian. |
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Post by Bonobo on Mar 26, 2017 15:34:46 GMT 1
Polish police find lost Gierymski painting 22.03.2017 12:25 A painting by renowned Polish artist Maksymilian Gierymski which had been lost since WWII has been found by police. The “Polish Patrol of 1830” painting had been missing since WWII.  Photo: Policja.plThe “Polish Patrol of 1830” painting had been missing since WWII. Photo: Policja.pl The oil painting, “Polish Patrol of 1830”, was recovered by Warsaw police working together with the culture ministry. “The work was lost during the Second World War and is listed in the register of Wartime Losses of the Culture and National Heritage Ministry,” a police statement said. The 1869 painting was found at a Warsaw auction house. The ministry database contains over 63,000 records of artworks looted from Poland following the German Nazi invasion in 1939. However, the lootedart website, which is run by the ministry, says that while difficult to estimate, the total number of works looted from Poland could be around 516,000, in addition to over 22 million books, although it adds that these figures only reflect “known and registered pieces”. |
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Post by pjotr on Mar 26, 2017 23:02:09 GMT 1
There will be probably a lot of Polish paintings, drawings, graphical art and sculptures in the hands of Germans, Austrians, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussians. Peoples who were part of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army during the Second World War. But also Western art collectors with money who went to Poland during the Polish Peoples Republic (1952–1990) will have bought Polish art in a clandestine manner on a black art market. Also Poles who went abroad and became part of the Polish diaspora outside Poland transported and smuggled Polish art and culture outside Poland. We were one of them when we smuggled paintings, drawings, silver and porcelain from Poland to the Netherlands in 1987 after my babcia died in Poznan. (We had to smuggle some things, because antique stuf from before 1945 was prohibited to take out of Poland)
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 23, 2017 0:18:33 GMT 1
There will be probably a lot of Polish paintings, drawings, graphical art and sculptures in the hands of Germans, Austrians, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussians. Peoples who were part of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army during the Second World War. But also Western art collectors with money who went to Poland during the Polish Peoples Republic (1952–1990) will have bought Polish art in a clandestine manner on a black art market. Also Poles who went abroad and became part of the Polish diaspora outside Poland transported and smuggled Polish art and culture outside Poland. We were one of them when we smuggled paintings, drawings, silver and porcelain from Poland to the Netherlands in 1987 after my babcia died in Poznan. ( We had to smuggle some things, because antique stuf from before 1945 was prohibited to take out of Poland) In 1987 communism still had a strong grip on the country. How did you manage to smuggle that stuff? Poland recovers artwork looted in World War II 22.04.2017 09:54 The canvas “Ships in a Rough Sea” by the Dutch artist Simon de Vlieger (1601-1653) has been returned to the National Museum in Warsaw. Photo: Polish Culture MinistryPhoto: Polish Culture Ministry  It was stolen from the Museum during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising by Wilhelm Ohlenbusch, in charge of propaganda within the General Government, a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939. During the ceremony at the National Museum, Culture Minister Piotr Gliński said that over 300 works of art have been reclaimed by the Ministry over the past five years. The whereabouts of Simon de Vlieger’s painting remained unknown until May 2016, when a representative of the London-based firm The Art Loss Register approached the Polish Culture Ministry with a request to confirm the authenticity of a work of art that was offered for sale by a German auction house. On the basis of the documentation provided by the Polish side, the painting was withdrawn from the auction. The negotiations with the owner brought an amicable solution, resulting in the return of the painting to the museum, where it had belonged prior to World War II. Poland’s war-time losses comprise almost 63,000 works of art – paintings, sculptures, handicrafts and furniture. (mk/rg) |
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Post by pjotr on Apr 29, 2017 0:48:08 GMT 1
Dear Bo,
I was extremely risky and dangerous what my father did with smuggling that old Polish paintings, porcelain and silver out of Poland. We are very nervous and tense at the border of the Polish Peoples Republic and the DDR (East-Germany) I can assure you. My father drove in a beige silver Ford Taunus Bravo 1600CC with a Popup camper, and the painting and the silver and porcelain were hidden in that Popup camper.
There were very strict controls at that border that day. In front of us and next to us cars were take apart by the Grenztruppen der DDR, Volkspolizisten or Deutsche Grenzpolizei. The East-German border police were scary chaps, because their uniforms were somewhere inbetween Nazi-Germany and Stalinist Sovjet NKVD-Red army uniforms. The contrast between the strict DDR and the somewhat less strict Polish peoples republic was huge for us. We were always releaved when we left East-Germany and drove into Poland. First the Polish uniforms and Polish border guards were less strict and less scarry and secondly they were Polish.
For us there was a clear difference between East-German communism (a sort of mix between Stalinism, Marxism-Leninism and Prussian militarism and discipline) and the Polish communism. Very bad and not democratic either, but a tiny little bit less bad than the East-German, Czech and Hungarians ones. The East-Germans weren't nice not the chaps that controlled our car when we went from West-Germany to East-Germany and from East-Germany to Poland and back, and not their colleagues, when we travelled by train from the Netherlands to Poznan. In East-Berlin alone we sometimes had 3 to 4 controls. They checked our compartment, our luggage, looked in the Vaulkt and they looked under the train with searchlights and German Shepherd dogs.
It was a miracle we weren't caught and left alone after brief checks that day on the border of the Polish peoples republic and the German Democratic Republic (DDR). East-Germany wasn't a pleasent place to travel through and stay for sure. A police state of Stasi and the Volkspolizei.
Cheers,
Pieter
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 29, 2017 23:12:34 GMT 1
Dear Bo, I was extremely risky and dangerous what my father did with smuggling that old Polish paintings, porcelain and silver out of Poland. We are very nervous and tense at the border of the Polish Peoples Republic and the DDR (East-Germany) I can assure you. My father drove in a beige silver Ford Taunus Bravo 1600CC with a Popup camper, and the painting and the silver and porcelain were hidden in that Popup camper. There were very strict controls at that border that day. In front of us and next to us cars were take apart by the Grenztruppen der DDR, Volkspolizisten or Deutsche Grenzpolizei. The East-German border police were scary chaps, because their uniforms were somewhere inbetween Nazi-Germany and Stalinist Sovjet NKVD-Red army uniforms. The contrast between the strict DDR and the somewhat less strict Polish peoples republic was huge for us. We were always releaved when we left East-Germany and drove into Poland. First the Polish uniforms and Polish border guards were less strict and less scarry and secondly they were Polish. For us there was a clear difference between East-German communism (a sort of mix between Stalinism, Marxism-Leninism and Prussian militarism and discipline) and the Polish communism. Very bad and not democratic either, but a tiny little bit less bad than the East-German, Czech and Hungarians ones. The East-Germans weren't nice not the chaps that controlled our car when we went from West-Germany to East-Germany and from East-Germany to Poland and back, and not their colleagues, when we travelled by train from the Netherlands to Poznan. In East-Berlin alone we sometimes had 3 to 4 controls. They checked our compartment, our luggage, looked in the Vaulkt and they looked under the train with searchlights and German Shepherd dogs. It was a miracle we weren't caught and left alone after brief checks that day on the border of the Polish peoples republic and the German Democratic Republic (DDR). East-Germany wasn't a pleasent place to travel through and stay for sure. A police state of Stasi and the Volkspolizei. Cheers, Pieter Great memories, it happened 3 years after 1984, Orwell would feel bitter satisfaction seeing the world he had predicted. PS. East German border guards killed about 300 people trying to escape from DDR. |
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Post by jeanne on May 21, 2017 22:19:43 GMT 1
It was a miracle we weren't caught and left alone after brief checks that day on the border of the Polish peoples republic and the German Democratic Republic (DDR). East-Germany wasn't a pleasent place to travel through and stay for sure. A police state of Stasi and the Volkspolizei. Cheers, Pieter Pieter, That must have been so scary! Your Dad must be really even tempered and self-possessed to act calmly under those circumstances! I'm glad they did not find the art, and I'm also glad your family was able to keep the art in your family!! |
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Post by Bonobo on Nov 18, 2017 18:47:12 GMT 1
Poland aims to stop auction of painting lost in WWII 09.11.2017 08:30 Officials in Warsaw have launched efforts to prevent the auctioning in London of a painting that they believe was looted from Poland during World War II. A version of Henryk Siemiradzki's The Sword Dance. Image: [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsA version of Henryk Siemiradzki's The Sword Dance. Image: [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons  The painting, by 19th-century artist Henryk Siemiradzki, is included on a list of Poland’s wartime losses, according to officials. It is scheduled to be put up for auction at Sotheby’s of London on 28 November. The Polish ministry of culture and national heritage said it has undertaken efforts to have the painting withdrawn from the auction. Magdalena Ogórek, a journalist specialising in tracing works of art that were once stolen from Polish collections, has told public broadcaster TVP that Siemiradzki’s canvas has been offered for sale by a German collector who inherited it from his parents. She said the matter is complex from a legal point of view: the Polish state has to produce a large body of documents to prove that a given work of art was the property of the state, a museum, or a private collector, and that it had been looted. Many written documents were lost during the war so in many cases it is impossible to present sufficient proof that a given work had been looted, Ogórek said. The painting in question, entitled The Sword Dance, is the smallest version of several of Siemiradzki’s works of the same title. It was shown at Siemiradzki’s one-man exhibition at Warsaw’s Zachęta Gallery in the summer of 1939. In a statement for the PAP news agency, Sotheby’s of London has said that “it is working with the ministry of culture and national heritage in order to explain fully the situation” relating to Siemiradzki’s painting. Another version of Siemiradzki’s The Sword Dance was sold at Sotheby’s in New York for USD 1.8 million (PLN 6.5 million).  A monumental painted curtain at the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Kraków, one of Henryk Siemiradzki's best-known works. Photo: Marycha80/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). In recent years, two other paintings by Siemiradzki have been sold at Sotheby's in London: By the Fountain and The Tightrope Walker. Born in 1843, Siemiradzki studied in St. Petersburg and Munich. He lived in Rome for many years. He died in 1902 and was buried in Warsaw but later his remains were moved to the Skałka Pauline Church in the southern Polish city of Kraków. (mk/gs/vb) |
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Post by Bonobo on Jan 22, 2018 22:49:08 GMT 1
Painting lost in WWII returns to Polish museum
08.01.2018 16:20
A 1872 painting lost in World War II and recently recovered by Polish experts and police was on Monday showcased to the public.
Culture and National Heritage Minister Piotr Gliński (centre); the director of the National Museum in Kraków, Andrzej Betlej (left); and the deputy provincial chief of police, Robert Strzelecki (right), during the ceremony in Kraków on Monday. Photo: PAP/Jacek BednarczykCulture and National Heritage Minister Piotr Gliński (centre); the director of the National Museum in Kraków, Andrzej Betlej (left); and the deputy provincial chief of police, Robert Strzelecki (right), during the ceremony in Kraków on Monday. Photo: PAP/Jacek Bednarczyk
The painting, entitled Winter in a Small Town, is the work of renowned Polish artist Maksymilian Gierymski (1846-1874). It has been recovered through the joint efforts of regional police and experts from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in Warsaw.
The painting was presented in a high-profile ceremony at a gallery in the southern city of Kraków, a division of the city's National Museum.
The Gierymski work will return permanently to the National Museum in Kraków after several months of restoration work.
"For many years, we've been trying to locate and regain lost artwork in a systematic way," said Piotr Gliński, the minister for culture and national heritage and a deputy prime minister, while showcasing the painting on Monday.
He added that the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage operates a special department that employs specialists who are tasked with recovering lost artworks.
They work closely with police, prosecutors and diplomatic missions as well as law enforcement services and institutions in other countries, including the FBI, Gliński said.
An official list of Poland’s wartime losses comprises almost 63,000 works of art, including paintings, sculptures, handicrafts and furniture, according to Gliński.
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Post by Bonobo on Nov 11, 2018 19:39:34 GMT 1
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Post by Bonobo on Jan 30, 2020 8:19:46 GMT 1
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Post by Bonobo on Mar 21, 2020 15:36:33 GMT 1
This one wasn`t looted. But still remains abroad and there is no money to retrieve it. I mean 7 paintings sent to New York for the World Fair in 1939. Poland has to refund the costs of conservation of the collection. letteraturaartistica.blogspot.com/2013/11/francesco-mazzaferro-florence-warsaw.html
Zamoyski was co-founder of the Brotherhood of St. Luke in Warsaw (Bractwo św. Łukasza) in 1925, a group of ten artists of which he was president until its dissolution in 1939. It is not a coincidence if they decided to give themselves the same name used for centuries by congregations of painters in medieval and Renaissance Italy and the Netherlands, and more recently used by the Nazarenes in Germany a hundred years before.
Irena Kossowska informs us that the Brotherhood "had the goal of creating a Polish school of painting that was rooted in the European tradition in accordance with the conventions of past centuries, mixing up in the workshops the skills of the old masters and reshaping their practice of art and craft." She adds that "the ideal of the young painters was the organization of artistic work on the model of a medieval guild." The goal was "to make of Warsaw a new Florence." It is therefore not surprising that, at the stage of his professional training, Zamoyski has spent one year in Italy. Unfortunately, I am not able to tell you precisely where and when.
The Brotherhood set itself the purpose of documenting national history, an important task since the country had regained its independence only in 1919. In 1939, the group - chaired by Zamoyski - exhibited a set of seven tempera, painted by the ten members collectively, in the hall of honour at the Polish pavilion at the Universal Exhibition in New York. Two of the ten authors (Bolesław Cybis and Eliasz Kanarek) accompanied the seven tempera paintings to New York. They are now preserved at the Library of Le Moyne College in Syracuse: a painful issue not yet closed on the Polish side: the paints were used by the Polish government in London (the government in exile, supported by the Western allies, whose army took part in the liberation of Italy) to settle payments to the United States; that payment was never recognised in Warsaw, which still claims the seven paintings back. The paintings describe the historical Polish epic in terms of the encounter between the Eastern folklore, the Western world and art and the common Catholic orientation. The journey of paintings and painters towards the US took place on an ocean liner MS Batory, whose interiors were decorated by Zamoyski. Although the group disbanded in 1939 because of the war, that mission into the New World is still remembered in Poland. A posthumous book by Zamoyski on that experience was published in 1989 (10) and, the Polish director Michał Dudziewicz was inspired from the same episode to draw a documentary film in 2005, titled "Łukaszowcy NY'39" or "The Group of San Luca in New York in 1939 "(11). A curiosity: the opening of the Universal Exhibition with Roosevelt and Einstein was the first television broadcast ever in the United States. The Polish pictorial traditionalism met in the United States with the newest American media technologies. And who knows, maybe these were the first paintings in the world to have been displayed in the homes of wealthy families in America.
Today it is difficult to consider the paintings of the Brotherhood in 1939 as a product of modern art since Cubism - for example - was already thirty years old. Not so then. The Brooklyn Museum in New York had devoted an exhibition to the painters of the Brotherhood already in October-November 1933. Frequently we forget that not all of the twentieth century was avant-garde, as well as not the entire second half of the nineteenth century had been impressionism. Everywhere were co-existing forces of the revolution and the restoration of the aesthetic values of the past and today - with the benefit of time distance - we can no longer deny dignity to both. Who won? Do not forget that each of us spends several hours in front of a definitely very figurative and traditional medium – the television - and that films (think for example at the same Polish cinema) are, for almost their totality, the last heirs of a traditionalist aesthetic mood. So, one day, the very idea of modern art will need to be re-thought, just to understand our today’s world.    |
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Post by Bonobo on Oct 14, 2020 9:15:56 GMT 1
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