In the context of Equestrian Portrait of Count Stanislas Potocki, analyze the World War II and its aftermath of the Reception and ownership.
In 1944, during World War II, Equestrian Portrait of Count Stanislas Potocki was looted by the Nazi forces. According to surviving records, the painting was stolen by a group led by the Wehrmacht General Eberhard Kinzel in December 1944, who first transported it to Świdnica and then to Germany.: 396  During Jacques-Louis David's bi-centenary exhibition in Paris in 1948, art historian Douglas Cooper described the portrait of Potocki as one of the "important works" missing from the show. In 1952, Soviet authorities informed the Polish government (by then the USSR-aligned Polish People's Republic), that they had retrieved numerous works from the Wilanów collection as part of their wider post-war restitution campaign that spanned across Germany.: 397  According to Stanisław Lorentz, who was the director of the National Museum in Warsaw at the time, the initial set of works was repatriated to Poland in the same year. The remaining works, which included the portrait by David, were returned during an official ceremony held at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) in 1956.: 398 Subsequently, the portrait was placed in the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw. In 1990, after the fall of communism in Poland, the work was transferred back to Wilanów, then part of the National Museum in Warsaw, and placed on public display. In 1995, the palace became an independent national museum and in 2013, it was renamed the Museum of King John III's Palace at Wilanów. In 2016, after undergoing extensive conservation, the painting was moved from the North Hall to the White Hall, its original location during the early 1800s where David's painting remains on view as of April 2023.
hat Museum of King John III's Palace at Wilanów Warsaw National Museum in Warsaw Wehrmacht returned Potocki Jacques-Louis David Equestrian Portrait of Count Stanislas Potocki looted conservation Hermitage Museum fall of communism in Poland Eberhard Kinzel pl Wilanów repatriated Stanisław Lorentz Palace Count Stanislas Potocki Soviet Polish People's Republic Świdnica Douglas Cooper