In a story over 70 years in the making, over 1,500 works of art — some known to have been confiscated by the Nazis and in total now worth about $1.3 billion — have been found in the apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, the 80-year-old son of a well-known Nazi-era art dealer. What has compounded the problem for families of the former owners of these works is that it has taken almost three years to acknowledge the discovery and officials still haven’t made public a comprehensive list of the works they found. Apparently, Gurlitt sold some pieces when he was in need of money, including a pastel drawing by Max Beckmann, “Lion Tamer, Circus” (above) that went to auction after his “collection” was discovered.
via LA Times (updated here) and the original German-language story in Focus here