Poland strives to retrieve Raphael painting stolen during WWII

Poland will not give up on retrieving Portrait of a Young Man by Italian painter Raphael Santi, stolen by the Germans during the Second World War, Deputy Culture Minister Magdalena Gawin told Polska The Times newspaper.

Gawin said that every year the culture ministry secures the return of precious paintings, old prints, sculptures and other artefacts stolen during the German occupation from Poland.

She also said that the ministry compiled a list of Poland's WWII losses and cooperates with national and foreign services in that case.

In 2018, Polish Culture Minister Piotr Glinski suggested his German counterpart Monika Gruetters sign a joint appeal (a so-called 'open call') directed to institutions and individuals in Germany to verify their collections in order to identify Polish cultural property losses based on the Polish database. Nevertheless, Gruetters ultimately denied the signing of the document.

Gawin said that after the Second World War, Poland lost over 60,000 artefacts.