ART TROVE IN MUNICH WORTH 1.5 BILLION EUROS

Bavarian Justice Minister Winfried Bausback has defended the controversial handling of the trove of possibly looted art in a Munich apartment. He has also called for a new law to lift the statute of limitations in such cases in the future.

Under Hitler the Germans had stolen some 5 million artworks from across Europe -- the biggest theft in history. After the armistice, the Monuments Men concentrated on locating and returning these works to their rightful owners. The special unit, which had by this time grown to 350 men, acted as treasure hunters, combing through archives and the homes of Nazi officials, and interviewing museum directors and eyewitnesses.

A Norwegian museum has agreed to return a Matisse painting, looted by the Nazis, to the family of Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg.

Woman in a Blue Dress in front of a Fireplace has been on display at the Henie Onstad Art Centre (HOK) since 1968.

The gallery said that although it acquired the painting in good faith, it had "chosen to adhere to international conventions and return the painting.''

Its worth is estimated at $20m (£12m).

The work was painted in 1937 and bought by Rosenberg, the famed art collector who represented Picasso as well as Matisse.

The mystery over the billion-dollar art hoard gathered by Hildebrand Gurlitt has again deepened with the discovery of another 180 masterpieces and the emergence of another property now suspected to have been a warehouse for art looted by the Nazis.

The latest find, including a 1903 Monet oil painting of London’s Tower Bridge worth an estimated £8m, a bronze sculpture by Renoir and drawings by Gauguin, Cezanne and Picasso, was allegedly recovered from a property belonging to Hildebrand’s son Cornelius. He claimed he had inherited the collection from his father, who took orders from Hitler to buy and sell so-called “degenerate art” to fund Nazi activities during the Second World War.
[...]
A journalist from the Vienna-based television station Puls 4 revealed last week the existence of the third house linked to Mr Gurlitt, which is thought to have been used as a storage depot for the family collection and is said to have been “stuffed with art” until 2012. The total number of works recovered now stands at 238.

Hildebrand’s cousin, Wolfgang Gurlitt, was also active on behalf of Hitler in acquiring artworks and, like Hildebrand, had used his Jewish ancestry to supposedly help Jewish refugees by acquiring their artwork at a fraction of its value. According to property title deeds published by Puls 4, the Bad Aussee estate was occupied by Wolfgang Gurlitt and is still in family ownership.

The “huge estate” in the village of Bad Aussee, Styria, is home to Roman salt mines that were used to store some 6,000 artworks, which Hitler tried to destroy shortly before the war ended. It is estimated that less than half of the collection, recently featured in the George Clooney film The Monuments Men, was returned to the original owners.
[...]
Last week, the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper quoted Mr Gurlitt’s lawyer, Christoph Edel, as saying his client wanted to “return all (artworks) that have been stolen or robbed from Jewish ownership to each of their owners or descendants”.

Hildebrand was elected the director of the Kunstverein, Dusseldorf’s venerable art institution and died unexpectedly in a car crash in 1956. His son Cornelius, now 81, has been declared unfit to manage his affairs because of his age and infirmity.

Mr Edel and Austrian investigators have declined to comment on the contents of the Bad Aussee property.