[2][3][4][5] Upon its public discovery, the collection was impounded by the Augsburg Prosecutor's Office as evidence in a possible case for tax evasion that was never mounted; the works were not returned to Gurlitt's estate until after his death.
[2] He lived modestly, drove an inexpensive Volkswagen car, and was a virtual recluse, maintaining as little contact with the outside world as possible, with the exception of regular visits from his sister Benita.
[12] The amount was below the legally allowed limit to be carried between countries in cash but aroused the suspicion of authorities that he might be involved in some sort of art fraud selling stolen artworks on the black market, on which he was paying no tax in Germany.
[14] German customs officials obtained a warrant to search his sister's Munich apartment where he was living and discovered 1,406 works of art initially reported as worth €1 billion (this figure was subsequently revised downwards to some tens of millions of euros).
[17][2] In December 2013, a local court in Munich appointed a German lawyer, Christoph Edel, to look after Gurlitt's affairs for the next six months, under a scheme which provides legal representation for old or infirm clients.
[3][4][5] Artworks from the collections of Fritz Salo Glaser,[19] Armand Dorville,[20] Henri Hinrichsen,[21] Georges Mandel[22] and David Friedmann were among the many previously owned by Jewish collectors found in Gurlitts possessions.
[23] In 2011 when he put Max Beckmann's The Lion Tamer up for sale at the Cologne auction house Lempertz, it was recognized by Mike Hulton, heir to the Jewish dealer Alfred Flechtheim who had been persecuted and plundered in the Nazi era.
People close to Gurlitt told an American newspaper that he decided to give the collection to a foreign institution because he felt that Germany had treated him and his father badly.
[29] The museum decided to accept those works, none of which are suggested to represent the proceeds of Nazi-era looting, and enter into a joint agreement with German and Swiss authorities about the handling of this bequest.