ArtSherlock is an original project of the Communi Hereditate Foundation implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg Foundation.
This is the first solution of this kind, which will totally revolutionize identification of works of art stolen during the war. Thanks to the application it will be possible to automatically recognize the object solely on the basis of a photograph taken by means of a mobile phone. The innovative application enables the users to verify objects at any place, any time. For that purpose, both the photos taken at a particular moment as well as those stored in the memory of the device may be used. The tool may be used in any conditions. The photographed work of art may be the physical piece of art in front of the user, but also its image in an auction catalogue or on a computer screen. The application has been prepared in Polish and English version and is available for Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry operating systems.
Modern methods of searching for cultural objects lost by Poland
The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage utilizes modern on-line tools for active search of Polish cultural objects lost at war. Owing to those actions it was possible to find and regain the painting by Oswald Achenbach entitled Via Cassia near Rome, which returned to the collection of the National Museum in Wroc³aw in 2014. Thanks to the use of state of the art methods of monitoring the international antiquarian market, the ministry of culture identified the work of art in the offer of one of the German auction houses. Thanks to the ethical attitude of the then owner, the painting was unconditionally returned to its original collection.
Oswald Achenbach, Via Cassia near Rome, 1878, The National Museum in Wroc³aw
By developing modern methods of searching for the lost cultural objects, the Ministry of Culture registers the lost works of art in international databases such as Lost Art Register or Interpol base. Such activity makes it possible to reach a wider audience of the images of works of art lost by Poland during the war, thus increasing the chances of finding them.
The ArtSherlock project is another step on the road towards modernizing and increasing the effectiveness of finding and identifying the works of art lost by Poland during WWII.
Cooperation of the ministry of culture with The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg FoundationThe presented application is the latest chapter in the history of activity of The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg Foundation aiming at supporting the Ministry of Culture in the scope of restitution of Polish lost cultural objects. Thanks to the cooperation of The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg Foundation with the Ministry, in the last years the following works of art have returned to the Polish national collections (among others):
- The painting A Negress, Anna Bilińska - Bogdanowiczowa 1884, The National Museum in Warsaw
- The painting Resting in a Tatra Shed, Wojciech Gerson 1862, The Royal Castle in Warsaw
Access to the network at the Royal Castle in Warsaw:
open network - no password and no securitybr /<> network name (SSID): artsherlock2
network with password:
network name (SSID): artsherlock1
wi-fi password: aplikacja [application]
