A stained-glass quatrefoil from the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the High Castle in Malbork, made in the Royal Stained-glass Institute in Charlottenburg, one of the best workshops in the world, has returned to the Malbork collections thanks to the restitution efforts of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Considered a war loss, the quatrefoil was originally located in a window on the north wall of the Malbork Castle Church. After being handed over by its previous owner, it has gone into conservation, thanks to which it will regain its original splendour.

Consisting of 71 squares, the square-shaped stained-glass window was commissioned by the Board of Rebuilding of Malbork Castle, along with other sections, in 1884.  It complemented the medieval stained-glass windows from Chełmno and Toruń, acquired for the windows of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the High Castle in Malbork from 1819.

In the post-war period, the quatrefoil was probably part of the transfer of the surviving glass items in the Castle, which, in agreement with the Malbork Culture Department and the Polish Army Museum, were used to protect the windows of the Malbork Parish Church. Work on the windows was carried out in 1953. It is probable that the quatrefoil did not fit into any of the windows of the parish at that time and was given to a workshop performing the service. It ended up in private possession.

Once it was identified by the staff of the Castle Museum in Malbork as a lost object from the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the High Castle, the previous owner of the stained-glass quatrefoil decided to return the work.

This is the third stained glass quatrefoil to return to Malbork in recent months. In August last year, two recovered quatrefoils with a depiction of the Prophet Moses and an ornamental motif, also made in Charlottenburg for the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the High Castle in Malbork, were presented at the Malbork Castle Museum.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński