The twin artworks, Mater Dolorosa and Ecce Homo, are by 15th-century Flemish painter Dieric Bouts, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
The medieval paintings returned to Poland on Wednesday, officials said.
They were retrieved from the Provincial Museum in the northwestern Spanish city of Pontevedra, reporters were told.
Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Culture Minister Piotr Gliński unveiled the diptych at a news conference in Warsaw.
‘Retrieving looted art is our daily job’
“It’s yet another piece of art lost during World War II that has been reclaimed by the Polish government,” Gliński told reporters.
He added: “Retrieving these artworks is our daily job and the effect of a functioning system ... At the moment, we are conducting more than 130 searches and from time to time, something falls into our net.”
Gliński praised "the goodwill' of Spanish officials in "bringing the retrieval process to a successful conclusion."
From Gołuchów to Pontevedra
Bouts’ Mater Dolorosa and Ecce Homo were once owned by Poland’s Czartoryski princely family, the PAP news agency reported.
The diptych was part of an art collection assembled by Izabella Czartoryski at the Gołuchów Castle in western Poland in the late 19th century, officials said.
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Izabella Czartoryski transferred some of her collection, including the Bouts paintings, to Warsaw.
Shortly thereafter, the Polish capital fell to the Nazi Germans and in 1941, the twin artworks were confiscated by the occupation authorities.
Lost and found
The subsequent whereabouts of the diptych were unknown until 2019, when officials at Poland’s culture ministry visited the website of the Pontevedra museum, the PAP news agency reported.
After an administrative procedure lasting more than three years, the diptych was returned to Poland on Wednesday.
“The paintings will return to the Gołuchów Castle, which is now a subsidiary of the National Museum in Poznań,” Gliński told reporters.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, wpolityce.pl, gov.pl