Swiss Museum Accepts Gurlitt’s Bequest

The trustees of the Kunstmuseum Bern announced that the museum would accept the bequest of the art collection of Cornelius Gurlitt.  Because the collection is believed to contain looted works and could expose the Swiss museum up to years of litigation, the institution has taken the full six months allowed by German probate law to make the decision to accept or reject the gift. 

As I have previously mentioned, the collection comprises of around 1,300 works by artists including Picasso, Chagall and Renoir found in Gurlitt’s Munich apartment in 2012 during a routine tax investigation.  The majority of the collection is believed to have been accumulated by Gurlitt’s father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, a Nazi-era art dealer.

The president of the Jewish World Congress, Ronald Lauder, warned the Bern museum that accepting the bequest would “trigger an avalanche of lawsuits.” 

See Julia Michalska and Javier Pes, Swiss Museum Accepts Gurlitt’s Problematic Bequest, The Art Newspaper, Nov. 24, 2014.