Piotr Gliński added, however, that France was in possession of another cultural artefact that was stolen from Poland during World War II, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The culture minister, who is also a deputy prime minister, said on Twitter: “The book by I. Kant, presented by President Emmanuel Macron to Pope Francis, is not a Polish war loss.”
He added that his Ministry of Culture and National Heritage had traced the origins of the volume together with Polish and French experts.
“All the evidence suggests that the book was already in France at the turn of the 20th century,” Gliński stated.
The book in question, Projet de Paix Perepetuelle by Immanuel Kant, was given by Macron to Pope Francis on Monday, after the French president’s office bought the work from Parisian bookseller Patrick Hatchuel for less than EUR 2,500, according to the AFP news agency.
'Academic Reading Room in Lviv'
The volume bears a stamp with the words “Academic Reading Room in Lviv,” which gave rise to speculation that it might have been looted from German-occupied Poland during World War II, as Lviv was then part of Poland, the PAP news agency reported.
However, Hatchuel was able to verify that the book was owned by the Lviv library between 1850 and 1870, before finding its way to the French capital around the year 1900 and eventually to his second-hand bookshop, the AFP news agency reported.
The Parisian bookseller said the Polish government had made contact with him regarding the origins of Kant’s volume, according to the AFP.
Artwork looted by Nazis from Poland 'still in France'
Poland's Gliński also tweeted: “However, another artwork, J. van Goyen’s A Dutch River Bank, which was stolen from the Wrocław collections during World War II, is still in France, at the Musée du Louvre, which has not replied to the Polish culture ministry’s restitution request to this day.”
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, dziennik.pl