Polish painting withdrawn from Sotheby's auction - Culture Min
The painting by renowned Polish artist Henryk Siemiradzki has been withdrawn from a Tuesday auction at Sotheby's, the Polish Ministry of Culture announced on Twitter on Tuesday.
"Let me express my gratitude to the entire Culture Ministry staff who helped achieve this success. Sincere congratulations", Culture Minister Piotr Glinski wrote.
"Siemiradzki's 'The Sword Dance' has been withdrawn from a Tuesday auction at Sotheby's owing to the intensive steps taken by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in cooperation with the National Institute for Museums and Public Collections (NIMOZ) as well as the Warsaw district prosecution's office", the ministry added.
In a statement sent to PAP on Monday, Sotheby's announced that despite a request by Poland's Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, it would not withdraw the Henryk Siemiradzki painting 'The Sword Dance' from auction. "We have been in dialogue with the Polish Ministry of Culture with a view to establishing whether Siemiradzki's 'The Sword Dance' is in fact a wartime loss from Poland. We do not believe the painting is because it remained in Poland with Polish owners for several decades after the World War Two. The painting is still in the sale", Sotheby's wrote.
The painting, owned by a private German owner, was scheduled to go under the hammer on Tuesday as part of an auction of a wider collection of Russian paintings. The seller claims the picture was purchased by his parents around 1960.
In early November, the Ministry of Culture requested Sotheby's to withdraw the painting - registered as a Polish war loss - without having further information about the picture's post-war fate. "Lack of information concerning the circumstances of the painting's purchase by the current owner and the fact that the picture, according to the ministry's current information, was exported from Poland without the necessary permits, suggests that the object carries a legal flaw", the ministry wrote in a press release.
The Culture Ministry went on to state that Sotheby's had been informed of the fact on November 23 and was again requested to withdraw the item from sale until all doubts surrounding it had been clarified. "Unfortunately, the auction house declined the ministry's request, justifying its decision through insufficient evidence from Poland, but did not provide any documents testifying to the painting's legal removal from Poland or data on the owner that would allow Polish authorities to verify the legality of its removal", the ministry wrote.
Henryk Siemiradzki, a Rome-based Polish painter and a great representative of European academic art, was born in 1843 and died in 1902.
Siemiradzki's fame was evidenced by his membership of the most prestigious European artistic institutions, including the Academy of Art in Berlin, the Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, the St. Luke Academy in Rome and Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He received many distinctions at international art exhibitions, for instance in Rome, Paris, Vienna, Berlin and St. Petersburg. During an individual exhibition at the St. Luke Academy in Rome in 1876, he received the Order of the Crown of Italy. At the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1878, he was awarded a gold medal for the painting The Girl or the Vase, and later the French Legion of Honour. In 1898, the king of Italy ordained him Commander of the Order of St. Maurice and Lazarus. Siemiradzki lived in Rome but often visited Poland, mostly to present his paintings at exhibitions in Krakow, Warsaw and Lviv. (PAP)
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