Famous painting lost in WWII goes on show in Warsaw

Culture Minister Piotr Gliński said the canvas, "A Jewish woman selling oranges," is part of a series of exhibitions entitled "Lost-Recovered".

It aims to highlight Polish successes in searching for and recovering art looted or lost during World War II.

Retrieving national treasures

Gliński said the authorities have a list of "almost 63,000 items lost by Poland and items sought by a special team at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. This is very important. We are constantly trying to retrieve these treasures."

Gierymski's "A Jewish woman selling oranges" disappeared in 1944, during the Warsaw Uprising against Poland's Nazi German invaders, said Jacek Miler, director of Poland's Department of Cultural Heritage Abroad and War Losses.

The painting surfaced in 2010 when it was put up for auction in Germany, but withdrawn from sale after an intervention by the Polish Ministry of Culture, the National Museum and the Warsaw Prosecutor's Office.

Long negotiations ensued to return it to Poland.

"A Jewish woman selling oranges" was painted in 1880-1881 during Gierymski's stay in Warsaw.

One of the artist's numerous genre scenes depicting the life of Jewish inhabitants of the city's poor districts, it was added to the collection of the Polish National Museum in 1928.

Gierymski is considered one of the forerunners of Polish Impressionism and spent many years in Rome, where he died in 1901, at the age of 51.

(pk)

Source: PAP