Polish wartime losses – the graphic “Lady with a fan” from the collection of the King John III Palace Museum in Wilanów and the lithograph “Royal Steelworks” by Ernst Wilhelm Knippel from the collection of the Silesian Museum in Katowice recovered thanks to the restitution efforts of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (MKDiN) are returning to their original collections.

“More than half a million valuable works of art were missing from Polish public, private and church collections as a result of wartime actions, planned looting carried out by the occupying forces, as well as looting and theft. Restitution efforts by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in recent years have led to the discovery and recovery of almost 700 individual objects”, said the head of the ministry, Piotr Gliński, during the handover ceremony.

The ‘Lady with a Fan’ print probably dates from the 19th century. It is an oleo-print with hand-painted elements, made on paper and then pasted onto canvas. The graphic was probably taken out of Wilanów in the autumn of 1944 during an operation led by the German commissioner Alfred Schellenberg.

In May 2023, a German couple applied for the return of the artwork, on the back of which the Wilanów markings were preserved. The previous owners decided to unconditionally return the ‘Lady with a Fan’ to the King John III Palace Museum in Wilanów.

The lithograph “Royal Steelworks”, dated 1840-1850, is the work of Ernst Wilhelm Knippel (1811-1900), a German draughtsman, printmaker and publisher who created a series of around 80 lithographs depicting Upper Silesian landscapes. ‘The Royal Ironworks’ is one of the lithographs from this series.

In February 2023, the lithograph was put up for sale at the Mehlis auction house in Saxony, Germany. The previous owner of the object – after reviewing the materials provided by the MKiDN. proving the origin of the work from the pre-war collection of the Silesian Museum in Katowice – decided to voluntarily return the work.

Arkadsiusz Słomczyński