The artwork was handed over to the National Museum in the southwestern city of Wrocław by the Deputy Prime Minister Piotr Gliński.
Speaking at Monday’s handover ceremony, the deputy PM said: “Poland has retrieved one of the most valuable art objects to have been lost as a result of World War II,” PAP reported. “It’s a remarkable painting and it will definitely adorn Wrocław’s National Museum.”
Gliński, who is also Poland’s minister of culture and national heritage, emphasised that the recovery of The Lamentation of Christ had been made possible by the cooperation between various entities.
He noted that it was officials at the Wrocław museum who first located the lost painting in the National Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2019. They then worked for two years with Poland’s culture ministry to bring The Lamentation of Christ back to the country, the deputy PM told reporters.
Polish-Swedish cooperation
On receiving news about the painting, the Swedish museum officials conducted their own research which confirmed that the artwork had been looted in Wrocław during the war, Gliński said.
As a result, Stockholm’s National Museum “officially recommended that the Swedish government hand the painting back to Poland,” the deputy PM stressed.
“Our governments then also worked well together - Sweden returned the lost artwork to Poland of their own accord, at no cost and with no conditions attached,” Gliński told reporters.
Dating back to the late 1530’s, The Lamentation of Christ emerged from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, one of the leading German painters of the Renaissance period and a supporter of the Reformation movement.
The painting was funded by the family of Konrad von Günterode, a merchant, and Anna née von Alnpeck, as evidenced by the coats of arms in the lower part of the picture, PAP reported.
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Source: PAP, IAR