(6 Feb 2014) A painting stolen by the Nazis during World War II was, on Thursday in New York, returned by the United States to the government of Poland.
The painting, 'Saint Philip Baptizing a Servant of Queen Kandaki' by German painter Johann Conrad Seekatz, was stolen from the National Museum in Warsaw around 1944 when the Nazis took over the museum.
"After the war ended, Poland was under the Russian domination and for years Poland felt, had a feeling of injustice, the historical injustice, so anything that we could have back, that art, piece of art, like today we have this beautiful art going back home is very important for the feeling of justice," Consul General of the Republic of Poland in New York, Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka, said.
The painting came to the attention of the Polish government when someone saw it for sale in a gallery in London.
Because it had last been sold at an auction house in New York, US Homeland Security had jurisdiction.
"The painting however wasn't being sold as a Johann Conrad Seekatz painting rather it was being sold by a painting under another name with a different title. So they were able to pick it out as the same painting that was stolen from their gallery and they you know brought US law enforcement in," Sharon Cohen Levin, Chief of Money Laundering and Asset Forfeiture Unit from the US Attorney's Office's Southern Division District of New York, said.
Ownership was transferred back to Poland at a transfer certificate signing on Thursday at the Polish Consulate in New York.
Approximately 70-thousand pieces of art remain missing from Poland from World War II, Ryszard Schnepf, Ambassador of the Republic of Poland to the United States, said.
Many of them are presumed destroyed in the war or sometime after.
The Johann Conrad Seekatz was painted in 1768.
A decade later the Warsaw School of Fine Arts gave the painting to the National Museum in Warsaw.
Find out more about AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
Instagram: [ Ссылка ]
You can license this story through AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
