Displaying items by tag: munich art trove

Kunstmuseum Bern (Museum of Fine Arts Bern), Switzerland has agreed, today, to accept artworks from the collection of Cornelius Gurlitt's 1,300 works that has been bequeathed to the museum by German collector. Christoph Schaeublin of the Bern Art Museum told a news conference in Berlin that the museum would accept parts of the artworks bequeathed by Cornelius Gurlitt, who died in May at the age of 81.

The collection has been known colloquially as the “Munich Art Trove,” and collated by Cornelius Gurlitt’s father, Hildebrand Gurlitt. Gurlitt senior was one of four art dealers entrusted with selling so-called degenerate art during the Nazi regime’s rule. The collection includes a number high-value works from the period by Henri Matisse, Max Liebermann, Otto Dix, and Marc Chagall, among others. Originally estimated at the value of nearly £700 million - the value has dropped significantly as many pieces are believed to have been looted from Jewish families by the Nazis.

A 1921 portrait by Matisse found in the private collection of the reclusive Cornelius Gurlitt was looted by the Nazis from a prominent French art collector and should be returned to his heirs, a team of international experts said on Wednesday.

The painting, “Seated Woman/Woman Sitting in Armchair,” depicting a subject in a flowered blouse with a blue fan in her lap, is the first picture from Mr. Gurlitt’s private collection to have its ownership history clarified. The team’s investigation followed an outcry over German authorities’ initial lack of transparency in handling the works, which have become known as the Munich Art Trove.