Swiss museum to accept Gurlitt 'Nazi art'
24 November 2014 Last updated at 11:49
Cornelius Gurlitt had agreed to help authorities discover which works had been stolen
Switzerland's Bern Art Museum has agreed to accept hundreds of artworks bequeathed by German Nazi-era art hoarder Cornelius Gurlitt.
Many of the works are expected to remain in Germany until their rightful owners can be identified.
Mr Gurlitt, the son of Adolf Hitler's art dealer, amassed a priceless collection of works, including pieces by Picasso and Monet.
He died in May aged 81 with the Bern museum named his "sole heir".
The Bavarian authorities seized some 1,280 artworks from his Munich flat as part of a tax evasion probe in February 2012.
The find, which was not made public until November last year, has triggered legal disputes surrounding works taken illegally by the Nazis.
The Bern museum's president, Christoph Schaeublin, told a news conference in Berlin on Monday that the museum would accept the bequest.
But "no work suspected of being looted" would enter the museum, he said.
The museum pledged to work with German authorities to ensure that "all looted art in the collection is returned" to its rightful owners.
Matisse's Femme Assise [Seated Woman] was in the Munich apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt- The family of Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg had been searching for Henri Matisse's Femme Assise [Seated Woman] until it turned up in Cornelius Gurlitt's flat in 2012. A German task force has now said the Matisse should be returned to the Rosenbergs.
- New Yorker David Toren has taken legal action against Germany over the return of Max Liebermann's Two Riders on the Beach, which he says belonged to his great-uncle David Friedmann
- The heirs of Jewish collector Ismar Littman are said to be claiming two works by Otto Dix
- The descendants of of Fritz Salo Glaser, a Jewish lawyer from Dresden, are also reportedly demanding the restitution of multiple artworks from the hoard
"The foundation council's decision was anything but easy and there certainly weren't emotions of triumph," said Mr Schaeublin.
"These would be entirely inappropriate considering the historic burden weighing heavily on this art collection."
Mr Gurlitt's father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, was ordered to deal in works that had been seized from Jews, or which the Nazis had considered "degenerate" and removed from German museums.
Among the collection were works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Emil Nolde and Max Liebermann.
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A beach scene by German impressionist Max Liebermann
A German task force is investigating the art amid claims from descendants of the original owners, including the family of art dealer Paul Rosenberg.
Cornelius Gurlitt initially refused to give up the paintings but then changed his position, agreeing to co-operate with the German authorities on establishing the paintings' provenance, and then return them if they were shown to be stolen.
But one of his cousins, 86-year-old Uta Werner, said on Friday she was contesting his fitness of mind when he wrote the will naming the Bern museum as his sole heir.
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