Art collection purchased at fraction of market value: Polish culture minister
PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea
30.12.2016 11:14
The Polish government on Thursday purchased an extensive art collection, including a da Vinci, for a fraction of its market value, said Polish Culture Minister Piotr Gliński.
The deal was signed on Thursday. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka
Gliński, who is also Poland’s deputy Prime Minister, told the TVP public broadcaster that the deal, agreed at EUR 100 million (PLN 442), was “less than five percent” of the collection’s “real value of PLN 10 billion”
As well as Leonardo da Vinci’s "Lady with an Ermine", the culture ministry bought some 86,000 pieces, 250,000 books, manuscripts and prints, as well as the buildings which hold the collection.
"Lady with an Ermine", the pride and joy of the Czartoryski Collection, is one of Leonardo da Vinci’s twenty extant works and one of his four female portraits.
It depicts Cecilia Gallerani, a young lady who entered the Milanese court around 1490, and became a mistress of the Duke Ludovico Sforza and the mother of his son.
It was the Duke who commissioned Leonardo to paint the portrait.
Meanwhile, the culture ministry on Thursday purchased the former Cracovia hotel in Kraków for PLN 29 million (EUR 6.5 million).
The building is to be the new branch of the National Museum in Kraków.