Cousin Had Challenged His Capacity to Make a Will Shortly Before 2014 Death
After a two-year legal battle, the Oberlandesgericht in Munich has upheld the dismissal of Uta Werner’s challenge to the will made by Cornelius Gurlitt in 2014 that designated the Kunstmuseum Bern as his heir, including the bequest of his controversial painting collection. Less than six months after it was revealed in November 2013 that the Bavarian authorities had seized 1,280 objects from his Schwabing home in Munich, Gurlitt wrote a will that designated that his entire collection would go to the Swiss museum. Barring some extraordinary appeal, the bequest will now be final and the collection will go to Switzerland. While lifting considerable uncertainty about the fate of the collection as a whole, this development does not address the lack of clarity about the process by which the objects that are suspected of having been looted by the Nazis will be examined or returned.
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Topics:
Bayern,
Hildebrand Gurlitt,
Cornelius Gurlitt,
Nazi-looted art in Munich,
SZ,
Uta Werner,
Nazi-looted art,
Oberlandesgericht,
Munich,
Sueddeutsche Zeitung,
Gurlitt,
NS Raubkunst,
Catrin Lorch,
Free State of Bavaria,
Kunstmuseum Bern,
Washington Principles,
Jörg Häntzschel,
Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB)
The revelation that Bavaria re-sold looted artworks to Nazi families while giving victims and their heirs the run-around for years has clearly touched a nerve at the Bavarian State Paintings Collection (the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, or BSGS). Days after the Sueddeutsche Zeitung exposed that the Commission for Looted Art in Europe (CLAE) had given the lie to years of deception by the BSGS, the BSGS issued a long, rambling, and defensive statement in defense of its actions. The statement is a classic case of misdirection. Reaction to the story and the BSGS response can be found at the Observerand the Telegraph.
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Topics:
Bayern,
Nazi-looted art,
Commission for Looted Art in Europe,
Restitution,
Bavaria,
World War II,
Raubkunst,
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen
Cornelius Gurlitt died yesterday, six months after his art collection was revealed to the world in a Focus article, and less than a month after striking a deal with Bavarian prosecutors over the 1,280 paintings and works of art seized from his apartment as part of a tax investigation. Although that brings the investigation that initially led to the seizure to an end, many questions remain about what will happen to the deal that he made, and to the works of art in Austria not covered by that deal
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Topics:
Focus,
Bayern,
Hildebrand Gurlitt,
Cornelius Gurlitt,
Germany,
Nazi-looted art,
Gurlitt Collection,
Seated Woman,
heirs,
Entartete Kunst,
stolen art,
Anne Sinclair,
Ersessene Kunst,
Restitution,
Bavaria,
World War II,
Süddeutsche Zeitung,
degenerate art,
Erben,
Austria,
NS-beschlagnahmte Kunst,
Raubkunst,
Henri Matisse,
Paul Rosenberg
