Heirs sue Hungarian state for seized Herzog collection

The heirs of Hungarian art collector Mor Lipot Herzog have filed a lawsuit against the State of Hungary in Washington aiming to recover artifacts confiscated in 1944 and now kept in Hungarian museums, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

The Herzog heirs have laid a claim for 40 pieces of art worth over 100 million dollars, and they also demand that the Hungarian government compile a list of all other items in state-run museums that were stolen from the famous private collection during WWII.

In January 2008, an appellate court in Budapest ruled against an appeal for the return of 12 paintings including works by El Greco, Lucas Cranach the Elder and Courbet, on grounds that the Herzog family had already received financial compensation for the paintings.

An attorney of the family said at the time that the heirs found the compensation insufficient, and that the family would take the case to international courts.

The collection was seized after Hungary's Nazi occupation in 1944. Herzog himself was killed in the Holocaust.

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