--- description: A valuable piece of modern art is being returned to the heirs of an art dealer who fled the Nazis title: Matisse Painting Looted by Nazis Returned to Jewish Art Dealer's Heirs image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27f9f6ef398702f8/69884ced06f2c10810339d4a/matisse-seated-woman.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Matisse Painting Looted by Nazis Returned to Jewish Art Dealer's Heirs  by [Mandy Oaklander](/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. May 16, 2015 6:27 PM CUT  A handout picture provided by Wolf Heider-Sawall Art Recovery Group shows the representative of the Rosenberg family, Christopher Marinello, with the painting 'Seated Woman' by Henri Matisse on behalf of the family in Munich on May 15, 2015. A handout picture provided by Wolf Heider-Sawall Art Recovery Group shows the representative of the Rosenberg family, Christopher Marinello, with the painting 'Seated Woman' by Henri Matisse on behalf of the family in Munich on May 15, 2015.Wolf Heider-Sawall—picture-alliance/dpa/AP  by [Mandy Oaklander](/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. May 16, 2015 6:27 PM CUT A valuable piece of modern art is [finally being returned ](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/05/15/406999313/looted-by-the-nazis-matisses-seated-woman-finally-finds-her-way-home "undefined")to the heirs of an art dealer who fled the Nazis. The artwork, Matisse’s _Seated Woman,_ was eventually intercepted by German authorities in 2010 after they stopped an elderly man, Cornelius Gurlitt, on a train from Zurich to Munich for carrying a large amount of money on him, NPR reports. They then inspected his apartment, where they found more than 1,000 works by artists including Chagall, Degas and Renoir, worth an estimated $1 billion. The pieces had been stashed in the apartment because Gurlitt’s father, an art dealer named Hildebrand Gurlitt, had helped broker deals between Nazis who traded modern art—works Nazis derisively called “degenerate art.” [**MORE**: The Nazi Art Theft Crisis in Europe](http://ideas.time.com/2013/12/19/the-nazi-art-theft-crisis-in-europe/ "undefined") One painting in particular, Matisse’s _Seated Woman_, was among the billion-dollar art cache. The owner, Paul Rosenberg, had been an art dealer and friend of the artist, but in 1940, he fled the Nazis and many of his pieces were pillaged. Rosenberg devoted years to trying to find 400 works stolen by the Nazis before he died in 1959\. There are still about 60 works missing from Rosenberg’s collection, his granddaughter told NPR. “There is nothing I have loved more in my life than my pictures,” the younger [Gurlitt once told the German news magazine](http://world.time.com/2013/11/17/german-says-nazi-looted-art-is-love-of-his-life/ "undefined") _Der Spiegel._ [Gurlitt died](http://time.com/89370/cornelius-gurlitt-hoarder-nazi-art-dies/ "undefined") in 2014 in his Munich apartment. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3881721/matisse-art-nazi/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3881721/matisse-art-nazi/"},"headline":"Matisse Painting Looted by Nazis Returned to Jewish Art Dealer's Heirs","datePublished":"2015-05-16T18:27:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T07:23:38.384Z","description":"The painting was found stashed in an apartment with $1 billion worth of artwork","url":"https://time.com/3881721/matisse-art-nazi/","keywords":["Art","Germany"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27f9f6ef398702f8/69884ced06f2c10810339d4a/matisse-seated-woman.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mandy Oaklander","jobTitle":"Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27f9f6ef398702f8/69884ced06f2c10810339d4a/matisse-seated-woman.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"A handout picture provided by Wolf Heider-Sawall Art Recovery Group shows the representative of the Rosenberg family, Christopher Marinello, with the painting 'Seated Woman' by Henri Matisse on behalf of the family in Munich","caption":"A handout picture provided by Wolf Heider-Sawall Art Recovery Group shows the representative of the Rosenberg family, Christopher Marinello, with the painting 'Seated Woman' by Henri Matisse on behalf of the family in Munich","creditText":"Wolf Heider-Sawall—picture-alliance/dpa/AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3881721/matisse-art-nazi/","name":"Matisse Painting Looted by Nazis Returned to Jewish Art Dealer's Heirs"}}]}] ```