One of Switzerland's most famous art museums says it will remove five paintings from its exhibition because of suspicions that the Nazis stole them from their original owners.
The works are part of the collection of the Kunsthaus museum in Zurich, and were painted by some of the world's most renowned artists, including Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.
There have long been doubts about the provenance of the paintings in the Emil Birle Collection, named after the German-born arms dealer who made his fortune during World War II by making and selling weapons to the Nazis.
The decision to remove the paintings comes after the publication of new guidelines intended to help museums deal with the large number of cultural works that have not yet been returned to the families from whom they were stolen.
Works by Claude Monet, Gustave Kirbe, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin are under investigation.
The board of the Emil Birle Collection Foundation said it was "committed to seeking a fair and just solution for these works with the heirs of the former owners."
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Another work from the collection, a painting La Sultana Edouard Mane, was also under investigation, but the foundation said it did not believe the new guidelines applied to him.
"Due to the historical circumstances surrounding the sale, the foundation is ready to offer a financial contribution to the legacy of Max Silberberg, as an act of respect for the tragic fate of the former owner," the statement said.
Silberberg was a Jew from Germany, an industrialist whose extensive art collection was sold at forced auctions by the Nazis.
He is believed to have been killed in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz during the Holocaust.
According to the paper Noah ciricher zeitung, there was debate over whether Silberberg was forced to sell La Sultana or did it for financial reasons.
More than 20 countries, including Switzerland, agreed earlier this year to the US State Department's new guidelines on how to deal with works of art stolen by the Nazis.
They were released to mark the 25th anniversary of the Washington Principles, a conference that laid out a set of guidelines for the restitution of items that have been stolen or forcibly sold.
The principles are an important tool for families who want to recover looted art because today, according to Swiss law, legal claims for restitution or compensation cannot be made for works from the Emil Birle collection due to the statute of limitations.
Stuart Eisenstat, the US secretary of state's special adviser on Holocaust issues, said when the guidelines were released in March that it was estimated that "more than 100.000 of the total 600.000 paintings and millions of books, manuscripts, ritual religious objects and other stolen cultural objects have never been recovered."
Birle died in 1956, leaving a collection of around 600 works of art.
A large number of them are managed by the Birle Foundation and are exhibited in the Kunsthaus museum.
Other works are believed to adorn the homes of Birle's relatives.
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