It's not yet clear how it came to be buried, but it likely happened in 1945 as the Soviet army approached the city, according to Lech Lopuski, a curator at the museum. "Had it been found right after the war, it would have definitely been destroyed," he tells the Dziennik Baltycki website . "Somebody made an effort to properly hide it, it was buried some 60cm underground." Mr Lopuski notes that the sculpture remained concealed in the garden despite repeated digging over the years to install a fountain and flower beds.