Activities related to the "Research on Polish war losses" program, co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, allow once again, of the return of artworks to Malbork.
Recovered works of art, photo: Museum in Malbork
These are:
– stained glass panel from the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the High Castle in Malbork, – altar wing from Ingeln, – neo-Gothic antique chair.
In the case of the castle, accurate estimation of war losses is extremely difficult due to the lack - with a few exceptions - of complete inventories or lists of museum collections, or highly dispersed and sparse archival documentation.
– Thanks to our work and that of our predecessors, the Malbork Castle is part of our heritage, it is no longer a foreign, troublesome heritage, it is not some kind of deposit that we received, it is already our heritage with the entire history of this place, complicated, difficult but very rich. – said Dr. Hab. Janusz Trupinda, Director of the Malbork Castle Museum.
In recent years, thanks to the support of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage under the Polish War Losses program, our museum has conducted extensive research, the effects of which are very visible today. First of all, they led to the identification of nearly 2,000
objects from the pre-war resources of the Malbork Castle, the publication of two volumes of a catalog of war losses, two source publications, two post-conference volumes, and more are planned, of course. Since the beginning of the project, several objects with castle provenance have returned to our museum's collection, and several other cases are currently being investigated in cooperation with the Department.
– It can definitely be said that our museum is lucky with its people. It is thanks to the involvement of many people that we can today celebrate the return of the medieval altar wing from around 1500 and the 19th-century stained glass panel. At the top of the list of these people are, of course, the donors of the objects who, having learned the origin of the works, decided to donate them to Malbork. – said Aleksandra Siuciak, Head of the MZM Scientific Library and project coordinator.
The objects that have come to the Museum today, although they were created hundreds of years ago, are closely related to the place of the ceremony, as both were purchased to equip the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the High Castle in Malbork.
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