Raphael Santi
Today in Krakow, Poland, the Czartoryski Museum will finally reopen after some massive renovation. This is the museum where from now on the super-famous The Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci will be presented. As we have featured The Lady in the past (please check our archives) today we will show you The Portrait of a Young Man by Raphael Santi. As you see, it's not a painting we present—but an etching from the old catalog. This is because the original painting was stolen by the Nazis during World War II, along with 843 other objects still missing that originally belonged to the Czartoryski collection. Many historians regard it as the most important painting missing since World War II. It is suggested that, if found, the painting would be worth in excess of 100 million US dollars today.
The subject's identity is unverified, but many scholars have traditionally regarded it as Raphael's self-portrait.
In the 2014 film The Monuments Men, the painting is shown being destroyed by the Germans. It is shown as a prominent painting in a large cache of stolen art stored in an unidentified cave or mine that German troops set on fire with flamethrowers. It is a fiction; it's not confirmed that it was destroyed. As miracles sometimes happen in the art world, we still believe that it will be found one day and will hang on the Czartoryski Museum's wall. : )