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The sudden death of Cornelius Gurlitt, who kept hidden for decades in his various homes the incredible collection of art works amassed by his father who worked closely with the Nazis after 1933 and before the end of World War Two, has now opened a new chapter regarding their destination.

Mr. Gurlitt died at 81 on May 6, 2014 without known heirs and no one knows yet what will become of this collection now in the custody of the Bavarian authorities which seized some 1460 works in his apartment in 2012 and in his house near Salzburg (Austria) after he was interrogated by customs officers about the provenance a sum of some 15 000 USD he was carrying while travelling on a railway train between Switzerland and Germany.

Matthias Henkel, a spokesman for a task force formed by German authorities to help investigate the provenance of the collection, said that it will continue to try to clarify its provenance in order to trace back works seized by the Nazis from Jewish collectors before and during the war.

Meanwhile, it now rests on a court to determine whether anyone is entitled to inherit Mr. Gurlitt's property, notwithstanding the fact that the absence of any direct heir implies for any beneficiary the payment of a substantial inheritance tax, meaning that such person will only obtain a minimal fraction of the collection.

The artworks were seized in a tax evasion investigation in February 2012 from Gurlitt's Munich apartment where he lived almost secretely for decades,  selling some painting from time to time to meet his spendings. He kept most of the collection assembled by his father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, one of a handful of dealers allowed the Nazis to buy and sell modern works considered as "degenerate," that they removed from German museums.

Several works are believed to have belonged to Jewish collectors who were forced to sell them well under their value as they tried to flee abroad or whose collections were confiscated when leaving Germany in a hurry or during their arrests before they were murdered in concentration camps.

A few weeks before he died, Gurlitt reached an agreement with the authorities under which he would accept fair and just solutions regarding the return of any work looted by the Nazis. Hundreds of his artworks have been posted on the government website lostart.de, but so far only four claims have been received.

In December 2011, Cornelius Gurlitt sold for 865,000 euros a painting by Max beckmann titled the "Lion Tamer"at an auction held in Cologne by the Lempertz Group, which said recently it had reached an agreement whereby some of the proceeds would to go to heirs of Alfred Flechtheim, a Jewish art dealer who was forced to leave Germany and died in poverty in London in 1937.

Dismissed from his posts in two museums by the Nazis because of he was 25% Jewish, Hildebrand Gurlitt however managed to win their favors when he was granted permission to sale confiscated art to bring them currencies. Arrested after the war, he was interrogated by the Allied and duped them in making them believe that most of his collection had been destroyed during the massive air raid bombings over Dresden.

After keeping over 1500 art works in safe places, Hildebrand Gurlitt housed most of them in Munich before he died in 1955 in a car accident. His widow kept for herself the collection which in turn was inherited by Cornelius who hoped to retain the works since he considered himself as their legal owner under German laws which stipulate  that no action can be taken against a receiver of stolen goods after a period of 30 years.