Germany puts more paintings of Nazi art trove online

Germany has put more paintings and drawings of priceless artworks stolen by the Nazis online including works by Edvard Munch, Max Liebermann and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, public prosecutors announced. "Thursday night the Augsburg prosecutor's office communicated (the references) of more works of what has been called 'the artistic discovery of Schwabing' to the coordinating panel for lost cultural goods," the culture minister's office said in a statement, referring to the Munich district where 1,406 lost artworks have been found. The statement did not give their exact number. Around 7:30 pm (1830 GMT), 54 new artworks had been published on the lostart.de website, AFP saw. Of these, 16 were by Norway's Munch and 38 by German painter Liebermann. At that time the works by the French artist were not yet online. The minister's office said the search of the works' origin would determine whether they were linked to persecution by the Nazis. Germany said on Wednesday it would publish from Thursday pictures of 590 of the 1,406 artworks found in the apartment of the son of Hildebrand Gurlitt, a powerful art dealer commissioned by the Nazis with selling confiscated, looted and extorted works in exchange for hard currency. German customs police first seized the works in the Munich home of Gurlitt's son, the elderly recluse Cornelius, in February 2012, but the find was kept secret until a news magazine reported it nearly two weeks ago. Germany has since faced international criticism for dragging its feet on publicising the discovery of the artworks that also include masters Matisse, Rodin and Delacroix.