The Task Force went about its work very quietly, with very little information made public. 'Seated Woman' went back to Paris art dealer Paul Rosenberg last May. Toren finally received the work 70 years after the end of World War II. Toren is the great-nephew of Jewish businessman David Friedmann, who had purchased Liebermann's 'Two Riders' in 1905 and owned it until it was confiscated by the Nazis. Four have been returned to their rightful heirs, including Max Liebermann's 'Two Riders on a Beach' and Henri Matisse's 'Seated Woman.'ĭavid Toren, who now lives in New York City, was one of the heirs to have his works restituted. Only five of the 499 artworks in question were proven to have been looted by the Nazis. Then, Berlin did show interest by commissioning the Task Force, whose very name suggests competence and clout.īut the Task Force, led by art historian Ingeborg Berggreen-Merkel, generated more questions than answers - and resolved only one percent of the provenience cases at stake. Which of the works in the Gurlitt collection had belonged to Jewish owners and were unethically obtained by the Nazis? The initial approach of the Bavarian authorities - in particular, its reticence - left the impression that Germany has little interest in resolving cases of looted art. Culture Minister Monika Grütters Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. With a budget of six million euros ($6.5 million), it is designed to pick up where the Task Force left off. Grütters has meanwhile established a new German Lost Art Foundation in Magdeburg. Nevertheless, Germany's Culture Minister Monika Grütters put an end to the issue on Thursday () in Berlin, where she presented the final report of the 'Task Force.' Commissioned by the federal government and the state of Bavaria, it spent 25 months researching the proveniance of the Gurlitt collection in search of Nazi-looted works of art.

Even now, the Gurlitt case continues to occupy the heirs to the artworks, art collectors, lawyers, politicians and journalists worldwide. It wasn't until months later, in November 2013, that German magazine 'Focus' reported on the find, shocking the art world. German authorities confiscated the multi-million-euro collection and kept it under wraps. Some 1,500 valuable works of art had been kept in the Munich apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, whose father Hildebrand Gurlitt had been Hitler's own art dealer.

San leonardo art trove looted art