It sold at Sotheby’s in London on Wednesday for $2.92 million, more than three times the pre-sale estimates, the French news agency AFP reported.<\/p>\n
It is the first piece of artwork from the Gurlitt collection to be sold, and only\u00a0one of the first two\u00a0to be\u00a0returned<\/a>\u00a0to the heirs of its previous owners.<\/p>\n Gurlitt\u2019s father, Hildebrand, was an art dealer on assignment to the Nazis. When Hildebrand Gurlitt died in 1956, his son inherited the collection, which includes works by Picasso, Durer, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Beckmann and Matisse. The Gurlitt collection,\u00a0discovered in\u00a0the course of an investigation for tax evasion, is worth an estimated $1.26 billion.<\/p>\n Last year, Gurlitt signed an agreement with the state of Bavaria and the German federal government in which the provenance of all works would be researched, paving the way for the return of the paintings to the heirs of the rightful owners. The work of the task force searching for possible rightful owners continued after\u00a0Gurlitt died last May.<\/p>\n Gurlitt left his entire collection to the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland. The museum\u00a0accepted<\/a>\u00a0the collection and promised to participate in the process by which German authorities would attempt to return any looted works to their rightful owners.<\/p>\n![\"Share](\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\")