The Rubens sketch taken from Poznań
A small oil study for Diana and Callisto vanished in 1940. Its dimensions and museum history identify the panel still sought.
The subject comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Diana and her companions discover Callisto’s pregnancy. Rubens worked out the encounter in a small oil sketch on wood. The missing panel measures about 23 by 34.5 centimetres, dimensions that help distinguish it from larger compositions on the same subject.
The study belonged to the Poznań Society of Friends of the Sciences, an institution formed to support Polish culture and learning under Prussian rule. It was subsequently held in the museum then called the Kaiser Friedrich Museum Posen, the name used in accounts of the wartime loss.
The panel was taken from the museum in 1940 and moved to an unknown destination. The Museum of the Second World War’s lost works dossier identifies it as a loss of the National Museum in Poznań. Neither that dossier nor the documented wartime account establishes where it went next.
Artwork Details & DocumentationIdentification, ownership history and supporting records
Individual artwork identification details have not yet been documented in this record. Missing specifications are not inferred from the photograph or report headline.
Not documented in this record: object type · materials & technique · measurements · inscriptions & markings · distinguishing features · artwork title · maker / attribution · creation date / period · subject.
Record sources
Identification details follow the Object ID categories where documented. Ownership history is recorded separately; this documentation is not an authentication or a certificate of ownership.
Documentary sources
- Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk · missing work dossier ↗
- Culture.pl · object and documented theft ↗
- Wikimedia Commons · archival reproduction and object metadata ↗
An original ArtTraceX synthesis. Sources checked .