Marble bustrecovered after Nazi looting

An 18th-century marble bust of the goddess Diana which was looted by the Nazis in 1940 has been returned to Warsaw from Vienna, where it recently surfaced at an auction house.

The return of the sculpture by French master Jean-Antoine Houdon, valued at €250,000, is the latest development in Poland’s long effort to retrieve tens of thousands of works of art looted from museums and private collections in the nation’s tumultuous history, most recently during the Second World War.

Poland has listed 63,000 works of art as missing.

The sculpture was among the most precious purchases made by Poland’s last king, Stanislaw August Poniatowski, in the late 18th century.

It was first looted from the palace by Bolshevik troops during the First World War, but returned when Polish troops entered Russian territory in 1920 during a war against Moscow.

It vanished again in 1940 during Nazi Germany’s wartime occupation of Poland.

Last spring, a Vienna auction house contacted Polish art expert Ewa Ziembinska over a bust that a private person wanted to sell through them.

Its return was obtained through legal and diplomatic efforts with no payment involved, officials said.