Images of valuable works of art that have been considered lost since the end of the Second World War and have returned to Polish museum collections in recent years can be seen at the open-air exhibition ‘Lost/Recovered’, prepared by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (MKiDN). The exhibition will be presented until 1 April this year on the fence of the Royal Baths in Warsaw at Agrykola Street.

The open-air exhibition ‘Lost/Recovered’ presents selected works of art lost from Polish collections during World War II and recovered in recent years thanks to the restitution activities of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. 

According to the Ministry of Culture, visitors can not only see images of the objects, but also learn about their history. Among them are such exceptional works as: “Lady in peacock feathers” by Teodor Axentowicz (National Museum in Warsaw), the diptych “Mater Dolorosa” and “Ecce Homo” attributed to the workshop of Dieric Bouts (Gołuchów Castle Museum – a branch of the National Museum in Poznań), “Lamentation of Christ” from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder (National Museum in Wrocław), “Canal in New Port” by Arthur Bendrat (National Museum in Gdańsk) or the “Madonna and Child” found in Japan attributed to Alessandro Turchi (“National Museum in Wrocław”). Ossoliński in Wrocław). 

One of the panels of the exhibition presents the story of the loss and recovery of a valuable appliqué, i.e. a wall chandelier of chiseled and gilded bronze with an image of Medusa, which had belonged to the furnishings of the Palace on the Island in the Royal Łazienki Park in Warsaw since the beginning of the 19th century.

The exhibition reminds visitors that as a result of wartime actions and the planned looting carried out on the territory of occupied Poland by German and Soviet troops, Polish public, private and church collections lost more than half a million antiquities. The database of war losses, maintained and continuously updated by the Department of Restitution of Cultural Property of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, currently includes almost 70,000 records. Although the fate of a huge number of lost objects remains unknown to this day, thanks to the restitution activities of the Ministry of Culture, more than 700 works have returned to Polish museums in recent years.

Adrian Andrzejewski