After more than 70 years, Krzysztof Lubieniecki’s Portrait of a Young Man has been returned to the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw. Having been looted by the Nazis in 1944, the work remained missing until 2009, when the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage learned that the painting was likely in the United States. The ensuing search resulted in the recovery of the painting by the FBI and its subsequent return to Poland.

The painting was originally acquired for the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw in 1938, and by August 1939, in the face of the impending outbreak of war, it was put away for safekeeping by museum staff. Packed into a crate given the designation M.P.4, it remained in the museum until the Warsaw Uprising. According to then-director of the museum Stanisław Lorentz’s “Chronicles from the Uprising,” the painting was removed from the museum by German occupying authorities on 9 October 1944. Lubieniecki’s painting was one of a number of works from the museum collection to be seized by the Nazis and put into storage inside Fischhorn Castle in Austria. Information reaching the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in 2009 revealed that in 1945 or 1946 the painting was taken to the United States by a soldier of the 42^nd Infantry Division (known as the “Rainbow” Division) who had been stationed near the castle. Photographs of the painting were discovered by a descendant of the soldier among family heirlooms as he was researching his ancestry. Learning that the painting had been looted from the National Museum in Warsaw, the man contacted the Polish Ministry of Culture. At that time, all that was known of the painting’s whereabouts was that it had been sold in the late 1980s or early 1990s to a private collection in Columbus, Ohio.  

The personal involvement of the head of the FBI’s Warsaw office, Monika Wasiewicz, and the thorough investigation conducted by the FBI within the U.S. led to the establishment of the painting’s location. In late August 2015, the FBI informed the Ministry of the find and requested a positive identification of the canvas. A painting conservation expert and a representative of the National Museum then travelled to the United States and conducted a detailed examination which ended in the painting’s identity being unequivocally confirmed. Present during the proceedings, the individuals in possession of the painting agreed to hand over the painting to Polish officials. On 27 September 2015, Krzysztof Lubieniecki’s “Portrait of a Young Man” made its way back to Poland and back into the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw.

“Thanks to the joint efforts of U.S. authorities and our international partners, we were able to contribute to the return of this important work of art to its homeland. We are delighted to see the painting returned to the Polish government and to the National Museum,” announced an FBI spokesperson.

The “Portrait of a Young Man’ was painted in 1728 by Szczecin-born Baroque artist Krzysztof Lubieniecki (1659-1729), active in Amsterdam at the turn of the 18^th century. He was known for his portraiture work and his biblical and genre scenes, with the majority of his output consisting of portraits of Amsterdam gentry, nobles, clergymen, physicians and poets. Lubieniecki’s portraits stand out for their meticulous treatment to the details emphasising the dignity and status of the subject.

In addition to this painting, cooperation between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage has yielded the recovery of:

- in 2013, a prisoner’s cap from a Nazi concentration camp in Lublin (Majdanek concentration camp)

- in 2015, a 17^th-century chalice, stolen in 1994 from the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Opactwo near Sieciechów

In 2014, cooperation between the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the FBI also led to the recovery and return of 75 lost paintings by Hanna “Kala” Gordziałkowska-Weynerowska (1918-1998) to the Polish Museum in Rapperswil, Switzerland.