What happened to Raphael's "Portrait of a Young Man"?

by Marc Masurovsky

Portrait of a Young Man

What happened to Raphael Santi's “Portrait of a Young Man” which belongs to the world-renown collection of the Cracow-based Czartoryski princely family? The now-iconic painting remains the poster child for WWII plundered “treasures.” Its handlers pulled off a world-class vanishing act in the early days of May 1945 as US troops were closing in on the South Bavarian compound of Hans Frank, by then former governor-general of German-occupied Poland--the last known location of the Raphael.

In the coming weeks, the plunderedart blog will devote a series of informative pieces on various aspects of the disappearance of the Raphael painting and the global search for it.

We will highlight:

-two individuals who were “that close” to the painting up to the days before its disappearance—Eduard Kneisel and Wilhelm Ernst von Palézieux;

-Hans Frank who was governor-general of German-occupied Poland;

Hans Frank awaiting trial

-the US army units that raided Hans Frank’s compound at Neustadt am Schliersee in early May 1945;

-Ardelia Hall, who served as “Fine Arts and Monuments Adviser to the Office of International 

Ardelia Hall

Information and Cultural Affairs of the US Department of State , from 1946 to 1964, and who never 

stopped searching for the Raphael;

-Geoges Wildenstein, owner of the internationally-known Wildenstein & Co., Inc.;

Georges Wildenstein

-the Czartoryski family, rightful owner of the Raphael;

-the leadership of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, including former "Monuments Men"--James J. Rorimer, Theodore Rousseau and James Plaut.

And we will pick apart the sequence of events leading to the disappearance of the painting and the post-1945 search for it.

It is a story for the ages. It attests to how easy it is for an imposing work of art like the “Portrait of A Young Man” to  be there one instant and gone the next.  It has remained out of sight since May 4, 1945, the estimated date of its disappearance.

Sources and photo credits:

Ardelia Hall
http://illicitculturalproperty.com/victoria-reed-on-monuments-woman-ardelia-hall/

Georges Wildenstein
https://www.wildenstein.com/history/

Hans Frank
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/hans-frank
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1005017

Monuments Men and Women Foundation
https://www.monumentsmenandwomenfnd.org/hall-ardelia-r

Reviewed and edited by Saida S. Hasanagic