November 5, 2013

A cache of long-lost art treasures, some of it stolen by the Nazis, has been discovered hidden behind out-of-date canned goods in a shabby apartment in Munich, Germany. The approximately 1,480 paintings and prints by such famous artists as Chagall, Matisse, Picasso, Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec are estimated to be worth $1.35 billion. Not all of the artwork is modern. There are also Canalettos and a Courbet in the collection. German art expert Meike Hoffmann described some of works as dirty but undamaged. “The pictures are of exceptional quality and have very special value for art experts,” he noted. “Many works were unknown until now.”

The collection was in the possession of Cornelius Gurlitt. His father, art dealer Hildebrandt Gurlitt, amassed much of it during the 1930′s and 1940′s at what the senior Gurlitt himself said were “shamefully low prices” from Jews desperately trying to raise funds to get out of Nazi Germany. The rest, having been labeled “degenerate” by Adolf Hitler, had been seized by the Nazis. How these works got into Gulitt’s possession is unknown. After World War II, the elder Gurlitt allegedly claimed that his collection had been destroyed during the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945. He died in car accident in 1956.

(c) Gisele Freund, Photo Researchers

German authorities seized the cache during a raid on Cornelius Gurlitt’s Munich flat in March 2011. Gurlitt had become the target of a tax evasion investigation after he was discovered carrying some $12,000 in cash on a train from Zurich, Switzerland, to Munich in 2010. Prosecutors said the issue of ownership of the art was still being clarified. Some legal experts believe that the descendants of the original owners may be able to make claims on individual pieces. Others note that the art taken in Germany itself may not be reclaimable because of a 30-year statute of limitations.

Additional World Book articles:

• Max Beckmann
• Germany 1933 (a Back in Time article)
• Germany 1935 (a Back in Time article)
• Germany 1938 (a Back in Time article)