Polish police recover two paintings missing since WWII

Photo: policja.gov.pl

Officers located the paintings, which had disappeared during the Second World War, at the apartment of a Warsaw art collector on Thursday following a tip-off that the works were due to be sold at an auction house in the capital.

Prior to the war, Marcello Bacciarelli's Solomon Consecrating the Temple in Jerusalem and The Sacrifices of Solomon had belonged to the Society of Friends in Art in Poznan, western Poland.

Up until the outbreak of war, the works had been deposited in the Wielkopolska Museum, an institution later renamed as the National Museum in Poznan.

At this stage, it is unclear how the paintings came into the possession of the collector.

The works have now been passed over to experts at the National Museum in Poznan for verification.

Italian Marcello Bacciarelli (1731-1818), court painter to King Stanislaw August Poniatowski, was one of the most prolific artists in Warsaw during the late eighteenth century.

Besides portraits carried out for the king, he painted much of the Polish aristocracy.

He is considered one of the finest portrait painters to have been active in Warsaw during the Enlightenment era. (nh)