It is small, but valuable. The painting ‘Woman Carrying Embers’, by Pieter Brueghel (the younger), was stolen over 50 years ago in Gdansk. The work was identified at an exhibition in the Netherlands. After the discovery was publicised, the work was secured by the police. The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage wants the painting returned to the country.
The painting ‘Woman Carrying Embers’, by Pieter Brueghel (the younger) is estimated to be valued at €100,000. Made on board, the oil is only 17 cm in diameter and was painted in the first half of the 17th century.
The story of the work’s disappearance from the National Museum in Gdansk is a ready script for a film. The theft is probably also linked to the disappearance of another work of art – a drawing by Antoin van Dyck.
The exact date of the theft of the Flemish painter’s work is unknown. In 1974, a museum employee accidentally knocked the painting off the wall. Horrified, he discovered that instead of a painting he was dealing with… a photograph pasted into the frame. How long, then, did museum visitors admire not the painting, but only its photographic copy? This is unknown. The Gdansk City Museum’s collection received the painting in 1944. A year later, it was taken by the Red Army to the Soviet Union. At the end of the 1950s, the painting returned to Poland and was included in the collection of the National Museum in Gdansk.
The city of Gdansk website gdansk.pl recalls a story from the 1970s, when in 1974 the Citizens’ Militia investigated the theft of a painting and a drawing by van Dyck. The witness was customs officer Romuald Werner, who testified that the Brueghel painting had been taken out of the country by sea. Unfortunately, the customs officer mysteriously lost his life just before giving his official testimony. The investigation was discontinued until 2008, when the case was taken up by the Polish police. The officers failed to unravel the case and the investigation was also terminated.
Arthur Brand, an art market detective, proved to be more effective, as several hundred works of art around the world have already been returned to their rightful owners. Using his contacts, Brand learned that ‘Woman Carrying Embers’ would be on display in the Netherlands at the Gouda Museum. Brand contacted the owner of the painting, who confessed that the painting had been bought by his father from an art gallery owner.
source: Gdansk City Hall, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
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