retour d'une peinture du XVIIIe volée par les nazis

Pologne: une peinture volée par les nazis rendue

Une toile du XVIIIe siècle du peintre allemand Johann Conrad Seekatz, dérobée par les nazis et portée disparue depuis 75 ans, a été restituée jeudi à la Pologne par des responsables américains.

Lors d'une cérémonie à New York, l'ambassadeur de Pologne aux Etats-Unis, Ryszard Schnepf, a remercié les autorités américaines et accepté la toile, "Saint Philippe baptisant un serviteur de la reine Kandaki", peinte en 1768 et d'une valeur estimée à 40.000 dollars.

Cette peinture avait été donnée en 1879 par l'Ecole des beaux-arts de Varsovie au Musée national de Pologne à Varsovie. Les nazis ont occupé la capitale polonaise de 1939 à 1945.

Elle compte parmi les dizaines de milliers d'oeuvres d'art qui furent pillées par les nazis en Pologne durant l'occupation.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2014/02/06/97001-20140206FILWWW00508-pologne-une-peinture-volee-par-les-nazis-rendue.php

Plus d'informations et d'images:

U.S. to Return Painting to Poland That Was Seized by Nazis
By TOM MASHBERG



St. Philip Baptizes the Servant to Queen Candace,” by the German artist Johann Conrad Seekatz, disappeared from
Warsaw’s national museum during Nazi occupation. The painting is scheduled to be returned to Poland on Thursday.


An 18th-century painting that disappeared from Warsaw’s national museum about 70 years ago during Nazi occupation will be returned to Poland by the United States government on Thursday, officials said.

The oil-on-copper painting, “St. Philip Baptizes the Servant to Queen Candace,” by the German artist Johann Conrad Seekatz, portrays an episode from the Acts of the Apostles, the fifth book of the New Testament. It was seized in London in 2011.

A spokesman for the Polish Consulate in New York, which will receive the work from federal Homeland Security Investigations officials during a handover ceremony, said the work had been put up for sale by a New York auction house in 2006. He did not say who bought the item, only that it was in the possession of an art gallery in London when it was confiscated. He said he could not identify the auction house or gallery.

Federal officials said more information on the case would be made available during the ceremony.

“Returning the painting from London to New York, and at the same time allowing the transfer of the work to Poland, was a result of a complex legal and administrative process and months of cooperation” between American and Polish authorities, said the consulate official, Stanislaw Pelc.

Repatriations of cultural items often take years to finalize because American officials must account for a welter of federal and international laws while resolving ownership and liability challenges. Polish officials credited the Homeland Security agency as well as the Money Laundering and Asset Forfeiture Unit of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York for resolving the case.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/u-s-government-to-return-painting-to-poland-that-was-seized-by-nazis/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0