Andrew Stanislaus (Andrzej Stanisław) Ciechanowiecki (28 September 1924 – 2 November 2015) was a Polish-British nobleman, diplomat, and art historian.

[4] On his father's side, he came from an impoverished Masovian noble and senatorial family, established in Belarus, and who had recently lost their landed estates as a result of the Treaty of Riga (1921).

Elements of local Belarusian activists presented an ultimatum to the Skirmunts: that the 150 Polish military police stationed on their estate should lay down their arms or all the buildings would be set alight.

[5] Back at his old school, he obtained his baccalauréat in 1942 through "clandestine classes", Komplety, together with classmates later to become "luminaries" of Polish higher education such as, Professors: Jerzy Kroh, J.A.

To "distract" himself from difficult wartime conditions he decided to join an Art History course at the Uniwersytet Ziem Zachodnich (Western University) unaware of how portentous it would become.

It enabled him to attend the lectures of professor Tatarkiewicz "on themes like happiness, in the light of a Carbide lamp in a chilly suburban room.

After the collapse of the Warsaw Uprising and the conclusion of hostilities on 5 October, he did not leave the battered capital with the columns of captive Home Army fighters nor with the destitute civilian population.

By his own account, he visited Pruszków, the vast German holding camp for POWs and "went on Home Army missions in the provinces".

His claim to have worked for a short spell with the anti-communist Freedom and Independence organisation, (Wolność i Niezawisłość), until the spring of 1945 does not stand up since it was not founded till September of that year.

[8][9] Having decided not to escape to the West, in June 1945 he applied to the newly installed government of the People’s Republic of Poland to join the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Transported immediately to Warsaw in connection with the staged "British Embassy" Show trial and after lengthy interrogations, he was sentenced to ten years in prison in February 1952 for allegedly helping British and Vatican spies, as well as for extending his underground activities beyond the official date for disclosure, which, in any case, would probably have led to an earlier arrest.

In 1958 he won a travel scholarship from the Ford Foundation and the British Council, leaving the country on 22 July of that year, presumably, not thinking that it would mean a 19-year break with his homeland.

He had offers of work and further scholarships, but he decided to return to Europe, where in the autumn of 1959 he enrolled at the University of Tübingen to prepare a further doctoral thesis, on a new topic, and for which he had fortunately taken most of the materials with him from Kraków.

In 1961, he settled permanently in London, where he had been offered a directorship in the newly founded firm Mallett at Bourdon House, a subsidiary of Mallet & Son[12] in Bond Street.

That same year, with the help of Polish friends already permanently resident in the United Kingdom, he arranged for his mother, Matylda, to whom he was devoted to come and join him in Britain.

In 1965 he was invited to be co-organiser and co-owner of the newly opened London branch in Jermyn Street of the French Heim Gallery.

[18] He initiated under its aegis the creation of a care home, Kolbe House, for Polish elderly in the outskirts of London, which later transferred to Warsaw, where it became far more significant.

His position in the Order of Malta and his personal relationships with the heads of former ruling houses as well as his quasi-diplomatic activities in the fields of culture and ecclesiastical affairs were the grounds on which the last King of Italy, Umberto II, who although in exile, had kept his royal prerogatives in the field of Heraldry and confirmed Ciechanowiecki's "hereditary right" to use a comital title in 1975 – a foreign title allegedly "bestowed" on a family member more than 200 years ago.

As co-founder of the Page of History Foundation, (Fundacja Karta z Dziejów), which commemorates the centuries of Jewish participation in the culture and life of Poland, he contributed financially and as its artistic advisor to the erection of the monument "The Ten Commandments" in Łódź and the statue of "David the Psalmist" in Zamość, both the work of Gustaw Zemła.

Above all, he continued with his numerous connections with Poland, where he still travelled several times a year to attend academic meetings, including those of his own Foundation, as well as to deal with the publication of various books, and also to pursue his para-diplomatic and political activities.

After a funeral service at the Brompton Oratory, London, his remains were taken to their final resting place in the crypt of the Knights of Malta in the parish church of Mistrzejowice, Kraków.