Poland recovers looted painting that once hung in SS officers’ club in occupied Warsaw
The owner of the painting has donated it to Warsaw's National Museum after learning of its provenance.
A Polish painting, once owned by famed realist artist Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski, has been returned to its rightful place at the National Museum in Warsaw. The artwork, titled "Winter – Napoleon’s Retreat from Moscow," was looted by Nazi Germany during World War Two and displayed in an SS officers’ club in Warsaw. Culture Minister Marta Cienkowska celebrated the return, stating that the painting represents one of the most significant wartime losses in Polish painting.
The painting's history began when Wierusz-Kowalski, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, created the artwork. In the 1930s, it became part of the collection of industrialist Andrzej Rotwand, who eventually sold it to Ewa Tsonis, whose family had owned it since the 1960s. After conducting research into the painting's history, Tsonis notified the culture ministry, who confirmed the artwork's identity and subsequently donated it to the National Museum in Warsaw.
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