( CNN ) -- German art collector Cornelius Gurlitt , whose nearly priceless collection was confiscated because it was suspected to contain pieces looted by the Nazis , died Tuesday and left the masterpieces to a Swiss museum . One day after Gurlitt 's death at the age of 81 , the Museum of Fine Arts Bern announced that Gurlitt had named it `` his unrestricted and unfettered sole heir . '' The news came as a surprise , the museum said Wednesday , because Gurlitt had never had any connection to it . The museum 's directors are delighted at the news , they said in a statement , but also recognize that there are outstanding legal and ethical questions surrounding the collection . Gurlitt had undergone major heart surgery and was hospitalized for many weeks , his representative said in a statement . Gurlitt grabbed the attention of the art world when German prosecutors seized more than 1,200 paintings from his Munich apartment in 2012 , including works by Picasso and Matisse . The collection was confiscated as part of an investigation into tax fraud , but then it was thought that some of the paintings may have been works that were looted by the Nazis . Just last month , part of the collection was returned to Gurlitt as part of a deal with Germany 's cultural authorities and the Bavarian Justice Ministry . Under the agreement , works owned by Gurlitt that were not under suspicion were returned to him . Those suspected of being stolen were to be held securely while a task force investigates their provenance -- and will be returned to their original Jewish owners or their descendants if a claim is proven . Gurlitt 's representative said that with the art collector 's death , the investigation into the collection ceases . The court that was handling the investigation proceedings will now function as an estate court in the case . Among the staggering haul found in Gurlitt 's Munich , Bavaria , apartment in early 2012 were paintings by Pablo Picasso , Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , Oskar Kokoschka , Canaletto , Pierre-August Renoir , Franz Marc and Gustav Courbet . Gurlitt had said he never suspected that the collection he inherited from his father might include stolen artworks . Thousands of pieces of art condemned as `` degenerate '' by the Nazis were confiscated from galleries and private collectors in the 1930s and 1940s . Other works were stolen from Jewish families or sold for a fraction of their true value as the owners tried to flee the country . Gurlitt 's father , Hildebrand Gurlitt , who was part Jewish , survived the war as one of only four `` degenerate art '' dealers permitted by Adolf Hitler .
Gurlitt died the age of 81 at Tuesday . He came to the attention of the art world for his nearly priceless collection . Authorities were investigating whether some pieces had been looted by the Nazis . Cornelius Gurlitt never had any connection to Gurlitt , the museum says .