Count Alfred Potocki shipped about 700 crates from Łańcut to Vienna before the Red Army arrived, and the castle became a state museum

Alfred Antoni Potocki (1886-1958) was the last ordynat of Łańcut, an entailed estate founded in 1830. During the German occupation, Wehrmacht generals lived in the castle. In March 1944 he began packing most of the collections for shipment to Vienna. Between May and July 1944 special trains carried about 700 crates of movables out of Łańcut. He left by car in July 1944. Soviet troops entered the town on 1 August. The new authorities took the castle, and visitors were admitted to it as a museum in early September 1944. Potocki moved from Vienna to Liechtenstein in 1945 and later lived in Switzerland and France. He married Izabela Jodko-Narkiewicz in 1956 and had no children. He died in 1958. Most of the evacuated objects were sold over the following years and went to private collections in Europe and America. Part of the collection passed to his brother Jerzy, a former ambassador who settled in Lima. Jerzy's son Stanisław sold works there until his death in 2014. In 2019 two Polish foundations bought 20 of those paintings, including early portraits of King Jan III Sobieski, and brought them to Łańcut. Potocki's ashes were moved to the family crypt at Łańcut in 2001. In January 2025 a desk labelled "Zamek Łańcucki nr 1508", found at a Los Angeles auction, was donated back to the castle. In 2026 the castle is the state Muzeum-Zamek w Łańcucie.