Museum accepts bequest on art trove
Print Edition
A SWISS museum said it would accept a German recluse’s bequest of a spectacular trove of more than 1,000 artworks hoarded during the Nazi era.
The decision covers priceless paintings and sketches by Picasso, Monet, Chagall and other masters that were discovered by chance in 2012 in the Munich flat of Cornelius Gurlitt.
Christoph Schaeublin, president of the Board of Trustees at the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern, pledged to work with Germany to ensure that “all looted art in the collection is returned” to its rightful owners. Around 500 works of dubious provenance will remain in Germany so a government-appointed task force can continue its research in identifying the heirs.
Gurlitt, who died last May aged 81, was the son of an art dealer tasked by Adolf Hitler to help plunder great works from museums and Jewish collectors. In the course of a routine tax inquiry, 1,280 works were unearthed in Gurlitt’s cluttered Munich home.
More than 300 other works were discovered in a ramshackle house Gurlitt owned in Salzburg. Although he was never charged with a crime, the German authorities confiscated all of the Munich pieces.
Gurlitt struck an accord with the German government shortly before his death to help track down the paintings’ rightful owners. But his anger over his treatment reportedly led him to stipulate in his will that the collection should go to the Swiss institution.
After six months of negotiations, German Culture Minister Monika Gruetters called the accord reached with the Bern museum “a milestone in coming to terms with our history” under the Third Reich.
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