Experts: more work needed on past of German art trove
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BERLIN - More work is needed to confirm the past of hundreds of works of art hoarded by collector Cornelius Gurlitt, experts said Thursday, and Germany's culture minister pledged to try to get to the bottom of where they all came from.
A special task force that has been checking Gurlitt's trove -- more than 1,200 works found at his Munich apartment, plus around 250 from his property in Salzburg, Austria -- submitted its final report Thursday after two years' work. Gurlitt died in 2014, months after German authorities said they had seized the works in Munich.
Gurlitt's father, Hildebrand, was an art dealer who traded in works confiscated by the Nazis. Experts ruled out 507 works from the Munich collection having been looted under Nazi rule but have been looking at the provenance of hundreds more.
So far, only five works have been conclusively identified as having been looted from Jewish owners, among the 13 works on which all research has been completed. Jewish groups have criticized the German effort.
