Stolen artwork resurfaces in Gouda 50 years after disappearance from Polish museum
A painting by Pieter Breughel de Jonge that was stolen from the Polish National Museum in 1974 has resurfaced in the Netherlands. Museum Gouda exhibited the painting at the end of last year without realizing that it was on the “most wanted” list of stolen artworks, De Telegraaf reported after speaking with art detective Arthur Brand and the police.
The small 17th-century painting by Pieter Breughel de Jonge shows a peasant woman carrying a bucket of water and a pair of tongs containing a glowing coal. It formed part of the collection of the National Museum in Gdansk.
On 24 April 1974, an employee of the Polish museum accidentally knocked the work of the wall while cleaning it. The curator who came to take a look made a startling discovery. The frame did not contain the original work by the Flemish painter but a photo of the work that had been cut out of a magazine. A drawing by Anthony van Dyck from the 17th century, titled the Curcifixion, turned out to have also been stolen in the same way.
During the investigation, a customs officer, Romuald Werner, reported to the Minister of Culture that the artworks had likely been smuggled out of the country via the port city of Gdynia. The police arranged to question Werner. “Shortly before the witness hearing, people heard a man screaming on fire in a cemetery in Gdansk. That turned out to be Werner. Isn’t that a coincidence? He died from his injuries, and an investigation into his death was started,” art detective Brand told the newspaper.
However, that police investigation was quickly dropped and taken over by the Polish secret service, SB. According to Brand, secret services in Eastern Europe were often tied to large-scale art thefts at the time. “Only such a service was capable of committing such a theft and selling these kinds of works abroad during the communist period,” Brand said. Like many museums in Poland, the National Museum in Gdansk also employed a security guard from the SB.
A cold case team picked up the case of the two stolen masterpieces in 2008, but that investigation also fizzled out. Until Brand received a tip in September that the Museum Gouda may have the stolen Pieter Breughel de Jonge painting on display for an exhibit. “I did extensive research in archives and the Interpol database of stolen art and came to the conclusion that the painting in Gouda is the same work as the stolen Breughel from Gdansk,” he said.
Brand informed Richard Bronswijk at the Art Crime Department of the National Police, who contacted the Ministry of Culture in Poland. “People in Poland did not believe their ears. The work is very high on the ‘most wanted’ list of stolen art,” Brand said. The Polish authorities are working on an international request for legal assistance for the return of the stolen painting.
“The good thing is that the theft has not expired because it concerns a crime that was committed during the communist regime. The murder of customs officer Werner has also not been solved. It would be fantastic if both cases were re-examined,” Brand said.
Femke Haijtema, director of the Museum Gouda, is delighted that her museum played a part in solving this decades-old mystery. “This is really of great importance to the international art world,” she told the Telegraaf. She said that the museum acted in good faith when borrowing the painting for exhibition. “There is now extensive further investigation, and I do not want to disrupt that.”
The current owner of the painting, who asked to remain anonymous, told Brand that his father had bought the work from a gallery owner.
