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Deal reached on return of Nazi-looted Matisse

A lawyer representing a Jewish family trying to retrieve a long-lost Matisse painting looted by the Nazis said on Tuesday that a deal had been signed with the German government for its restitution.

Published: 24 March 2015 22:11 CET

Deal reached on return of Nazi-looted Matisse

Detail of Matisse's Seated Woman. Photo: AFP

London-based attorney Christopher Marinello, who works for the Rosenberg family, said that the order inked by German Culture Minister Monika Grütters had now paved the way for the 1921 masterpiece "Seated Woman" to be handed back.

"I can confirm that an agreement has been signed for restitution of the Rosenberg Matisse," he told AFP in an email, following a report in German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung to be published Wednesday.

"The signed agreement must now be 'approved' by the probate court before a date can be set for the painting's return. I expect this to be a pro forma exercise and anticipate a visit to Munich very shortly" to reclaim the painting, he added.

Grüters' office could not immediately be reached for comment.

The breakthrough in the case came after a Swiss museum agreed in November to accept the controversial inheritance of Cornelius Gurlitt, son of a Nazi-era art dealer.

Gurlitt, who died in May last year, left behind a spectacular stash of art in his cluttered flat in the southern German city of Munich.

The artworks were acquired by his powerful father Hildebrand who was tasked by the Nazis with selling artwork stolen from Jewish families in the 1930s and 1940s.

A German government-appointed panel determined in June that the Matisse, whose worth has been estimated at $20 million, was "Nazi loot" stolen from Paris art collector Paul Rosenberg.

Grütters pledged in November that three such works including the Matisse would be returned "without delay" to the rightful heirs.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Bern, Switzerland, agreed as part of an accord with the German government over the Gurlitt inheritance that it would restitute any works found to have been stolen by the Nazis.

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Germany returns final Nazi-looted artwork from pensioner's trove

One of the works found in Gurlitt's apartment, Waterloo Bridge by Monet, being displayed in Berlin in 2018. Photo: DPA

Culture Minister Monika Grütters said a total of 14 pieces had been handed back since a giant trove held by Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of a Nazi-era art dealer, came to light eight years ago.

The final work to be restituted was “Klavierspiel” (Playing the Piano), a drawing by German artist Carl Spitzweg. It was given on Tuesday to Christie's auction house according to the wishes of the heirs of music publisher Henri Hinrichsen, who was murdered at Auschwitz in 1942.

The transfer was arranged with the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern, which inherited Gurlitt's collection when he died in 2014.

READ ALSO: Germany returns famous artwork looted by Nazis

Grütters said it sent “an important message” that with the Spitzweg drawing “all art identified as looted from the Gurlitt art trove has been returned to the heirs of the victims”.

“Behind every one of these pictures is a tragic human fate,” Grütters said.

“We cannot make up for that great suffering. But by reckoning with the art looted by the Nazis, we are trying to contribute to historical justice and face up to our moral responsibility.”

'Enduring duty'

Grütters pledged to “decisively” continue provenance research on work in German collections, saying it was an “enduring duty”.

Adolf Hitler's regime stole the drawing from Hinrichsen in 1939 and the following year Hildebrand Gurlitt bought it.

The Nazis had engaged Hildebrand — who was part-Jewish — from 1938 to deal in items taken from Jewish owners or confiscated as “degenerate”.

A German government task force identified the drawing as looted in 2015 but legal complications meant its restitution could not be settled until now, Grütters said.

More than 1,500 works including pieces by Picasso, Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse in the possession of Cornelius Gurlitt were seized in 2012 during a tax probe.

The discovery of the stash, kept secret until the following year, made headlines around the world and revived an emotional debate about how thoroughly post-war Germany had reckoned with art plundered by the Nazi regime.

When Gurlitt died, the Bern museum accepted the collection, though it left about 500 works in Germany for a government task force to research their often murky origins.

Their work, and restitution, have been criticised by many heirs and activists as too slow. They say the Gurlitt case underlines the ongoing need for thorough provenance research in museum holdings and private collections.

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