NY museums required to disclose Nazi-looted art

At least 600,000 pieces of artwork were looted from Jewish people in the Second World War, one of the many ways the Nazis tried to eliminate remnants of their culture and identity.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City identified 53 works out of its collection of 1.5 million objects as pieces once stolen, seized, or sold through forced sale during the Nazi era.

The objects include paintings, manuscripts, and sculptures. The museum identified these works prior to the new law as part of an ongoing Provenance Research Effort.

An existing state law already mandates that all stolen art made before 1945 and stolen in Europe during the war be logged on the Art Loss Register, the world's private database of looted art.