A priceless Baroque artwork that was stolen during World War II has finally been repatriated to Poland. The painting is among 600 Nazi-looted pieces that have successfully returned to the country.

“Whenever there is this situation where the artworks come back…you feel proud because it shows the importance of Polish collections that is sometimes forgotten,” said Polish art historian Natalia Cetera.

‘Madonna with Child’, attributed to the Baroque painter Alessandro Turchi (1578-1649), once belonged in the magnificent collection of Polish aristocrat Stanislaw Kostka-Potocki (1755-1821). But by 1940, a Nazi official recorded the painting in a list of hundreds of artworks taken from occupied Poland. During the war, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union plundered countless cultural artifacts from mostly Jewish families after the country was invaded in 1939.

All traces of the Turchi painting had vanished until it reappeared at a New York auction in the late 1990’s. It was later discovered again in 2022 when the painting went up for sale at a Japanese auction, but it remains unclear how the piece came to Japan.

“More and more of the looted objects are appearing at auctions because the memory (of their past) has weakened and the persons who are in their possession now do not have the full knowledge or are not aware of where the artwork is coming from,” said Agata Modzelewska, head of the Polish ministry’s department for restitution of culture items.

Following negotiations with Poland, the Japanese authorities officially returned ‘Madonna with Child’ on Wednesday at the Polish Embassy in Tokyo. The law on repatriation varies from country to country – in Japan it can often rely on the goodwill of the current owner.

“It’s really up to the possessor in many cases to do the right thing… to understand that something was looted or stolen and that it should be returned,” explained Christopher Marinello, founder of Art Recovery International, “because you can’t rely on a lawsuit under Japanese law.”

It is estimated that more than 660,000 artworks stolen from Poland between 1939 and 1945 have yet to be recovered. The recent return of 600 artworks accounts for only 0.9% of the total loss. Polish authorities recently launched a campaign to track down the missing artworks, as well as demanding € 1.3 trillion (£) in damages from Germany in 2022.