It was a small-scale tax investigation back in 2012 that led to an art discovery that will be remembered for years to come. Thousands of paintings by famous artists were found at the home of the 81-year-old German recluse Cornelius Gurlitt.
In fact, the art discovery is so significant that the estimated worth of all the paintings combined totals almost 1.3 billion American dollars – an incredible amount.
Among the names of the painters were none other than Pablo Picasso, Franz Marc, Henri Matisse, and Otto Dix – all original paintings just sitting around and gathering dust. In total, 1401 different works of art were discovered at the man’s place in Munich.
What makes this discovery even more noteworthy is the fact that most of these paintings are presumed to be stolen by the Nazi’s dozens of years ago.
A local court has now ruled that the origin of the paintings must be discovered and has appointed art historians to do exactly that. They will have one year in total to find out of a work in question had been stolen from its owners.
If they can confirm that the work was stolen and can track the original owners or relatives, the painting will go back to its rightful owner.
Works that haven’t been proven as stolen after one year of an investigation will automatically be handed back to the German man. One of the spokesmen of Cornelius mentions that the man expects around 300 to 350 paintings to be given back to him, which means that over a thousand paintings will soon go back to the original owners.
Cornelius Gurlitt himself has inherited the collection of works from his father. He worked for Adolf Hitler and was asked to buy and sell art that featured “degenerate” art that was related to Jews. The proceeds from these sales would fund the party.
The tax investigation actually was somewhat caused coincidentally. The man had encountered some German officials at the customs on an international train ride to Switzerland and noticed that the man was carrying around a significant amount of money.
At the moment, all of the artworks are being held at a non-disclosed location where dozens of historians have access to it in order to perform background checks on the work.
Although the discovery was made in 2012, the public was unaware of the stolen paintings as the case only recently went public. In any case, this discovery is huge for the art world and a couple of families will be very happy to see their lost pieces of art once again.
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