BERN, Switzerland (WJC) — The German art collector Cornelius Gurlitt, who passed away on Tuesday aged 81, made the Museum of Art in the Swiss capital Bern his sole heir.
The museum made the announcement on Wednesday, saying it was surprised to be chosen since it did not have a relationship with Gurlitt.
“The Board of Trustees and directors of Kunstmuseum Bern are surprised and delighted, but at the same time do not wish to conceal the fact that this magnificent bequest brings with it a considerable burden of responsibility and a wealth of questions of the most difficult and sensitive kind, and questions in particular of a legal and ethical nature,” the museum said in a statement in which it identified itself as Gurlitt’s “unrestricted and unfettered sole heir.”
Gurlitt had written the will within the last few weeks, shortly before undergoing heart surgery, but didn’t reveal it to his lawyers, his spokesman Stephan Holzinger said. A Munich court confirmed Mr. Gurlitt, who died at home weeks after major heart surgery, had signed a notarized testament in early 2014.
Some 1,280 works were confiscated from his home in 2012 in the course of an investigation for tax evasion. Other works were subsequently found in Gurlitt’s second home in Salzburg, Austria. The investigation is now closed due to his death. Gurlitt’s father,Hildebrand, was an art dealer on assignment to the Nazis. When Hildebrand Gurlitt’s widow died in 1967, his son inherited the collection, which includes works by such greats as Picasso, Renoir, Beckmann and Matisse.
In April, the tax authorities released the works back to Gurlitt after he had reached an agreement with Bavaria’s Justice Ministry to restitute all works found by government-appointed experts to have been stolen by the Nazis. As part of the agreement, the collector had given investigators a year to determine their provenance and help arrange their restitution to families with claims on them.
A Bavarian government spokesman said that deal stood regardless of the newly surfaced will. The Kunstmuseum Bern, though, declined to say how and whether it would research and restitute looted artwork until it had talked to the relevant German authorities.
In an email to JTA, a spokesman for the task force set up to research the provenance of works in the collection confirmed that its work in searching for possible rightful owners would continue despite Gurlitt’s death.
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress