The artwork

In 1938, the Klaipėda Chamber of Industry and Commerce commissioned a monumental painting as a gift for the newly built Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Crafts in Kaunas. The purpose was clear: the Klaipėda harbour scene was intended to emphasise the importance of the Baltic Sea and the port to independent Lithuania. Jonas Buračas won the public competition and created a panorama approximately two metres high and four metres wide, viewed from the Smiltynė side.

The composition recorded a Klaipėda that was soon to change dramatically. Contemporary descriptions identify the towers of St John’s Church, the Reformed and St James churches, harbour structures, warehouses and industrial landmarks. The painting was installed in the second-floor vestibule of the Kaunas Chamber building and became an integral part of one of interwar Lithuania’s major representative interiors.

After the Soviet occupation in 1940, the building was nationalised. Historical accounts state that the painting was assigned to the M. K. Čiurlionis Art Gallery, although it was not transferred there before the Nazi occupation. In July 1944, as the Soviet army approached Kaunas, the work was removed from its frame and taken away with other property. Antanas Buračas has cited a handwritten account stating that his father witnessed the painting being stripped from the frame, rolled and loaded onto a truck.

A post-war lead points to Frankfurt am Main. The 1981 catalogue Jono Buračo tapyba referred to the possibility that the painting had reached a Frankfurt museum, and Bronius Kviklys later told Antanas Buračas that he had seen the work in Frankfurt after the war. The museum name was not retained, and the lead has never been publicly verified.

The search is now also part of Lithuania’s institutional record. In 2026, a representative of the Ministry of Culture stated that the disappearance had been entered into the Cultural Heritage Department’s database of missing cultural valuables. A Lithuanian government report concerning 2025 activity also identified the need to approach the German Lost Art Foundation about publishing the painting in the Lost Art Database.

This is a provenance and restitution search, not an ordinary acquisition notice. We are looking for credible information that may help establish the painting’s post-1944 route and present location. It may still be held by an institution, museum storage facility or another collection. Anyone who has encountered a very large Klaipėda harbour panorama by Jonas Buračas, or has access to post-war Frankfurt museum inventories, photographs or transfer records, is invited to contact us confidentially.

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Recent institutional update: LRT, July 2026 →