A Persian Tapestry Looted by the Nazis from the Princes Czartoryski Museum, Kraków

Abstract

This article traces the unusual story of a non-Western work of art stolen from a Polish noble, rather than Jewish, family during the German occupation. It illustrates the range of Nazi looting and the necessity of scrutinizing the provenance of every object, not only paintings. The story follows a sixteenth-century Persian tapestry on loan to the Princes Czartoryski Museum, Kraków, one of the most treasured objects in the collection, along with Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine, stolen by the Nazis in 1939. The tapestry was eventually returned, only to be stolen again and disappear at the end of the war. Auctioned in London from the estate of the scholar and collector Hagop Kevorkian in 1970, it was purchased by a prominent textile dealer and sold to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). In 2002 the Polish government formally claimed the tapestry, which LACMA returned to the Princes Czartoryski Museum.