The object, a leather and velvet taszka dated 1670, formed part of a royal saddle set believed to have belonged to King Michał I, who ruled the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 1660s and 1670s.
A taszka is a small side pouch attached to a saddle, used in the early modern period both for practical storage and as a status symbol.
The saddlebag entered the collections of the Kórnik Library in 1868.
The institution, founded in the 19th century by aristocrat and patriot Count Tytus Działyński, became one of the key private repositories of Polish historical treasures at a time when Poland did not exist as an independent state.
During World War II, the saddlebag was removed by the German occupation administration for a 1943 exhibition and later disappeared.
It was listed after the war as a Polish wartime loss in the official register maintained by the Ministry of Culture.
The object was formally unveiled and handed over on Friday at Wawel Royal Castle in Kraków, one of Poland’s most important historic sites and a symbol of Polish statehood.
Culture Minister Marta Cienkowska presented the saddlebag to the director of the Kórnik Library during a ceremony at the castle.
“We have reached the moment when this historic object is being restored to the State Treasury and will return to the Kórnik Library,” Cienkowska said, adding that it is “already more than the 800th object we have managed to recover that was stolen from the Polish state during World War II.”
She described the return as “another element of our history and our memory that we are successfully reclaiming.”
The story of the saddlebag’s recovery stretches back more than a decade.
In 2013, Wawel Royal Castle, which today functions as a major art museum, was offered the piece for purchase. Curators at the castle recognised it as the missing item from Kórnik and notified the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
A formal investigation was opened to establish the object’s provenance and confirm its authenticity, followed by legal negotiations with its then holder.
Prof. Andrzej Betlej, director of the Wawel Royal Castle National Art Collection, said that once the situation was clarified “there was no longer any question of a purchase.”
The saddlebag was secured at Wawel and kept for the past twelve years in a special high-security vault used for the castle’s most valuable works that are not currently on public display.
“After the full procedure and legal decisions, the saddlebag is, to our great satisfaction, returning to its rightful owner,” Betlej noted.
He added that if the Kórnik Library wishes, Wawel is ready to carry out conservation work on the entire royal saddle set, including the recovered pouch.
In 1924, the last private owner of the Kórnik estate, Władysław Zamoyski, donated his property and collections to the Polish nation, creating the Zakłady Kórnickie Foundation.
Since 1952, the Kórnik Library has been part of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Its holdings include manuscripts, early printed books and museum objects, among them the second saddlebag from the same royal saddle of King Michał I, which remained in Kórnik throughout the war.
So far this year, Poland has succeeded in regaining 25 objects, with the royal saddlebag from Kórnik now joining the list of artefacts brought back into public collections after decades of absence.
According to figures presented at the ceremony, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage is currently conducting around 200 proceedings to recover Polish wartime cultural losses in 18 countries worldwide.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP