14. Portrait of a Young Man is believed to be a unique self-portrait by the Italian Renaissance master Raphael, making it an invaluable missing work of art
Before and during the Second World War, the Nazis and their collaborators amassed a vast collection of stolen art. Some of it was returned to its rightful owners once peace returned to Europe. Some works remain the subject of complex legal arguments over such rightful ownership. And some paintings were stolen and have yet to be located. Of the latter group, no work is probably more valuable than Portrait of a Young Man by Raphael. Indeed, if it were to turn up tomorrow and be put up for auction, it would easily fetch more than $100 million.
The painting most probably dates back to 1514. It was, most experts agree, the work of Raphael, a Master of the High Renaissance period. While the subject of the portrait is not specifically identified, the general consensus is that it is Raphael himself. Given the artist, it was given pride of place in the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow, Poland. And so, when war broke out in 1939, the museum curators hid it from the invading Nazis. Sadly, it was found by the Gestapo. The Nazi-appointed governor of the region, Hans Frank, took it with him to Berlin but then brought it back to hang in his palace in Krakow. It’s here where it was last seen. It’s likely Frank took it with him when he tried to escape following the defeat of the Nazis. However, when he was arrested in May 1945, there was no sign of the Raphael. Neither could the painting be found in the years after the war.
To this day, the exact whereabouts of Portrait of a Young man remains a mystery. It could be that Frank took his secret to the grave with him; he was executed for crimes against humanity in October of 1946. Either way, the work is almost undeniably the most important painting to have gone missing since 1940, even if we don’t know for sure what it looks like in color, since only black and white photographs of it exist.