Swiss Museum Accepts Part of Gurlitt's Nazi-Art Collection

A Swiss museum has agreed to accept hundreds of artworks worth more than $1 billion from a long hidden collection of a German Nazi-era art hoarder Cornelius Gurlitt.  

An agreement was signed between Germany and Switzerland that would see Switzerland's Bern Art Museum taking scores of works from the collection, the Guardian reports.

Gurlitt's collection was discovered by tax inspectors at his Munich home in the year 2012. The Bavarian authorities seized around 1,280 artworks from the flat. It consisted of masterpieces looted by Nazis during World War Two. Some pieces were stolen from Jewish people and art museums across all over Europe, NBC News reports.

However, a spokesman for Bern said that the pieces looted by the Nazis would not be allowed in the museum.

"Looted art, or works that are suspected of having been looted will not come in touch with the Art Museum Bern, they will not even come onto Swiss ground," Christoph Schaeublin, president of the museum's foundation board, said at a news conference on Monday.

Gurlitt, the son of Adolf Hitler's art dealer, kept the works by famous artists like Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet hidden. The catche also includes works by Marc Chagall. As per the deal, those works whose rightful owners are not identified will remain in Germany. Therefore, as many as 500 works will remain back in Germany until their owners have been traced, BBC reports.   

Gurlitt bequeathed the works to the art museum when he died at the age of 81 in May.

German officials have said that three works - by Max Liebermann, Henri Matisse and Carl Spitzweg - will be returned immediately.