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Dialogue on cultural property: Guardi’s “Palace Stairs” to return to Poland
Looted from Warsaw’s National Museum and brought to Germany during the Second World War, Francesco Guardi’s painting “Palace Stairs” is to be handed over to Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski by Federal Minister Steinmeier at the Federal Foreign Office on 31 March 2014. State Secretary Jürgen Walter of the Baden‑Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts will be present for the ceremony.
The two Ministers have issued the following statement in the run‑up to the hand‑over:
“We are both very glad that this significant work of art is returning to Poland, to the National Museum in Warsaw, after 75 years. This restitution is a symbolic expression of mutual trust. It demonstrates the success of our dialogue on cultural property and provides fresh momentum for its committed continuation.”
The Guardi piece was confiscated from the National Museum in Warsaw by German authorities in 1939. After the war, it was brought to the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point, from where it found its way to Heidelberg University and later to the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.
