Nearly 1,500 priceless paintings including works by Picasso and Matisse that were stolen by the Nazis have been discovered in a flat in Munich, a news report said.
The German weekly, Focus said on Sunday, that police came upon the paintings during a 2011 search in an apartment belonging to the octogenarian son of art collector Hildebrand Gurlitt, who had bought them during the 1930s and 1940s.
The search was carried out because the son, Cornelius Gurlitt, was under suspicion for tax evasion, Focus said.
The report said the works were thought to be worth around one billion euros (USD 1.3 billion dollars) on today’s market. The artworks lay hidden amid old jam jars and junk in darkened rooms in Gurlitt’s apartment in the southern city for more than half a century. Gurlitt, a recluse without a job, had sold a few over the course of the years, living off the proceeds.