Carl Spitzweg s drawing Das Klavierspiel (1840)
A drawing by Carl Spitzweg that was uncovered in a secret cache of art in a Munich apartment 73 years after it was seized by the Nazis has been returned to the heirs of Henri Hinrichsen, a Jewish music publisher and philanthropist who was murdered at Auschwitz.
The drawing was seized by German customs in 2012 in the apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, an elderly recluse, along with about 1300 other works including paintings by Henri Matisse and Max Liebermann. It is the 14th work from Gurlitt’s collection, which he bequeathed to the Bern Museum of Fine Arts, to be returned to the heirs of the original Jewish owners, the German government said in a statement.
A Drawing Believed to Be the Final Nazi-Looted Artwork in the Gurlitt Collection Has Been Returned to Its Rightful Owners
The provenance of some 1,000 artworks from the notorious collection still remain unknown.
January 13, 2021
A restorer works on a masterpiece from the collection Cornelius Gurlitt. Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images.
Germany has restituted the 14th and what is believed to be final work of art from the notorious trove of Cornelius Gurlitt, whose art-dealer father, Hildebrand, worked with the Nazis beginning in 1938 to acquire works under duress from Jewish collectors.
The latest artwork to be returned to the heirs of its rightful owner is a circa 1840 drawing by German artist Carl Spitzweg titled