When the painting was retrieved after 85 years, it was tattered, torn, and covered in bird droppings. A long lost portrait of one of Poland’s most famous founding fathers—Marshal Józef Piłsudski—has gone on show to the public decades after it disappeared during World War II. The 105-year-old painting by Józef Mehoffer—a leading artist of the Young Poland movement and one of the most celebrated painters of his day—was painstakingly restored over two years, after being found in a Warsaw attic in 2024. But the conditions it was kept in took their toll, art conservator Marlena Koczorowska said. “It was folded and crumpled, with a large, 24-centimeter tear, attacked by microorganisms, and soiled with bird droppings,” Koczorowska, who led the restoration team, told Poland’s state-owned news agency, PAP. While the damage was extensive, the painting’s most important elements, including Piłsudski’s face, were largely unblemished, Koczorowska said, making it possible to reconstruct lost paint layers and bring the artwork back to its former glory. Hidden from Nazis The portrait depicts Piłsudski—who served as Poland’s first head of state after the country regained independence after World War I—dressed in a gala uniform and leaning on a saber in front of a portal leading to Krakow’s Wawel Cathedral. Art historians believe the work, which once adorned the offices of the Council of Ministers, was probably hidden to prevent looting following Nazi Germany’s 1939 invasion and subsequent occupation of Poland. It was discovered in 2024 by a married couple, who reported their find to Warsaw’s National Museum. The museum contacted the Ministry of Culture, which deposited with Warsaw’s Polish History Museum for conservation. 'Portrait of the Chief of State, Marshal Józef Piłsudski’ went on show to the public on Tuesday as part of the Polish History Museum’s new permanent exhibition.
