The handover took place at the Polish embassy in Paris. The object, taken from the church in Moskorzew, in Poland’s Swiętokrzyskie province, will soon be sent home.
Officers from France’s national judicial police directorate in Nanterre recognised the piece using Interpol’s PSYCHE database of stolen cultural property. French police alerted the Polish embassy in the spring.
“The database plays a fundamental role in identifying and tracing stolen cultural property, sometimes from many decades ago”, said Philippe Guichard of the police unit on organised and specialised crime. “Thanks to joint efforts, it is finally returning to its place after almost 30 years of absence”.
The monstrance, an openwork piece decorated with gilding, vanished on the night of July 14-15, 1997. Tomasz Śliwiński, an adviser on restitution at Poland’s Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, said it was the only item the thieves took, which suggests they knew what they wanted and its value. Records show it was in the church by the first half of the 19th century.
Wiesław Tarka, Poland’s chargé d’affaires and acting ambassador in France, credited officers of France’s Central Office for the Fight against Trafficking in Cultural Goods for the recovery.
“The list of missing objects is, unfortunately, very long”, he said.
It was the second such handover this year. In February, Poland recovered a 15th-century manuscript stolen from a Wrocław library.
(jh)
Source: PAP