More than a thousand paintings were discovered in an apartment in Munich whose total worth is estimated at over one billion dollars. According to reports the trove has works by Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Renoir, and Henri de Toulouise-Lautrec to name a few. In addition there are original works from Albrecht Durer and Canaletto from the Renaissance and Baroque periods.
The paintings were in the home of Cornelius Gurlitt whose father Hildebrand was a collector of modern art in the early 20th century. His job under the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was to collect "degenerate art" and sell it abroad to earn cash for the Nazi state. This art was largely stolen from Jewish families as they were sent to the concentration camps. The public has begun to demand that the art be returned to the original owners. Such a plan could be difficult as many of the original owners, along with their families were killed in the camps.
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