Renaissance Shield with Afterlife in World Wars Returns


The Philadelphia Museum of Art said Monday it will return a ceremonial shield to the Czech Republic after scientists determined it was part of a collection to which it once belonged. Archduke Franz Ferdinand and it was later seized by the Nazis after they annexed Czechoslovakia during World War II.

It will be the final journey of a shield created by an Italian artist during the Renaissance and surviving an extraordinary death in wars centuries later. It eventually ended in a bequest to the Philadelphia museum, where it was exhibited in the Arms and Armor Galleries as part of the Carl Otto Kretzschmar von Kienbusch Collection in 1976.

The museum has been working with historians in the Czech Republic since 2016 to assess the history and origin of the shield, officials said in a news release.

“After many years, a remarkable piece of Italian Renaissance art has returned to the Czech Republic, which historically belongs to the d’Este Collection of Konopiste Castle,” Nadezda Goryczkova, head of the Czech Republic’s National Heritage Institute, said in a statement. . “Glad to meet.” The agreement to return the artifact was jointly reached by the museum and the National Heritage Institute, which promised to consider any future loan requests for the derelict.

In Philadelphia, the museum’s director and CEO, Timothy Rub, said Monday, “An artifact lost during the turmoil of World War II is happily returned, and an exceptional scientific partnership has emerged from it. ”

Experts say the shield, attributed to artist Girolamo di Tommaso da Treviso, is probably Holy Roman Emperor V in Italy in the 1500s. The shield is made of wood, linen, gesso, gold, and pigment and measures 24 inches in diameter. The scene depicted on the surface of the disk shows the storming of New Carthage (now Spain) by Roman soldiers. This motif of an ancient military victory can be seen paralleling the conquests of Charles V.

Historians have determined that the shield once belonged to him. Archduke Franz Ferdinandpossible heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire Assassination by a Serbian nationalist in 1914 ignite World War I.

The Archduke had an impressive collection of weapons and armor, which he displayed in his country house, Konopiste Castle, near Prague. After the First World War, the castle and its collections became the property of the newly formed Czechoslovak government. However, curators said that by 1939 Germany had annexed the area, which included Konopiste, and four years later the Nazis confiscated the castle’s armor collection.

In a statement from the museum, it was stated that Leopold Ruprecht, Hitler’s curator of weapons and armor, eventually collected the best pieces from the collection and sent them to Vienna, where they are planned to be housed in a planned museum in Linz, Austria. When the artifacts were returned to Czechoslovakia after the Second World War, 15 objects were missing.

One of them was this elaborately decorated shield, made for ceremonial purposes around 1535. Museum officials said the shield was identified through art inventories from pre-World War II and a photograph dated circa 1913 that shows it on display at Konopiste Castle.

The shield is one of many works of art captured by the Nazis. The origin of some pieces, many of them taken from Jewish families, remains a matter of debate today. heirs called get items back from museums or private collectors. In some cases these efforts have paid off. lawsuits On works that are said to be worth millions of dollars.



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