THE COURTIER AND A LADY BY JAN MOSTAERT. THE STORY OF TWO PAINTINGS FORM THE COLLECTIONS OF THE MUSEUM IN GOLUCHOW (Dworzanin i Dama Jana Mostaerta. Historia dwoch obrazow ze zbiorow muzeum w Goluchowie)

At the end of the nineteenth century Countess Izabela Dzialynska, born Czartoryska, created in the restored castle in Goluchow (Greater Poland) one of the best collections of art works not only on Polish soil but in this part of Europe. In order to decorate the castle interiors she purchased two sixteenth century portraits attributed at the time to an unidentified Low Countries author and today associated with the oeuvre of Jan Mostaert (about 1475-1555). One of the canvases was regarded as a portrait of King Charles VIII of France, and the other - of his wife, Anne of Bretagne. Both works were intended for the so-called royal bed chamber maintained in the Renaissance style, where they remained until 1939. The two works were also mentioned in all the guidebooks to the Museum in Goluchow as well as in studies about its collections. Before the outbreak of the war Countess Maria Ludwika Czartoryska, who at the time was managing the Goluchow estate (created for the purpose of the collections in 1893 by Countess Dzialynska), recommended the evacuation of the most valuable art works to Warsaw where they were to be safely hidden. The exhibits, including the two above-mentioned portraits, were, however, discovered by the Germans and then transported to the National Museum in Warsaw for the purpose of their further transference to the Reich. In October 1944 the titular portraits and all the other exhibits were conveyed to Fischhorn Castle near Salzburg, from which they were stolen. After the war the two canvases were published in a catalogue of Polish losses of foreign painting. In 1997 the Portrait of Anne of Bretagne appeared at an auction held by Sotheby's in New York. Apparently, after the war it had become the property of the Bishop of Salzburg, and in 1959 it was sold in New York by Knoedler & Company. The canvas was purchased by the Turcotte family, whose members put it up for sale at the mentioned auction. In the name of the Czartoryski family the American owners were impeached by Count Adam Karol Czatoryski de Burbon. In the wake of the verdict passed by a New York court, which granted Prince Czartoryski ownership rights but at the same time confirmed that the Turcottes had bought the painting in good faith, both sides decided to sell it and share the profits. The sale of the portrait took place at the beginning of 2001, and today its whereabouts remain unknown. Three years later, in the course of provenance studies an employee at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond identified the second Mostaer canvas - The Portrait of Charles VIII. Upon the basis of a suitable restitution motion the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Washington, empowered by the Czatoryski family, filed a motion for a return of the canvas, which in 2005 was entrusted to the Princes Czartoryski Museum in Cracow. Both portraits were thus regained by the rightful heirs who, unfortunately, decided to separate them for always.