
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 25, 1995                   TAG: 9503010040
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Short

LOST TREASURES BROUGHT TO LIGHT

Russia is about to unveil a spectacular cache of art treasures taken from Nazi Germany in World War II: paintings by such masters as El Greco and Van Gogh hidden away from the world for 50 years.

Like the art itself, the exhibit at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts has been cloaked in secrecy. But an unofficial list of the works obtained by The Associated Press shows it should be a bombshell.

The list reads like a Who's Who of art history: Van Gogh, Degas, Renoir, El Greco, Goya, Daumier, Manet, Veronese, Tintoretto, Cranach and more.

The exhibit opens Monday and the Pushkin, which for 50 years guarded the secret of the Soviet spoils of war, plans to reveal the works at a news conference a few hours before the opening.

``All we know is that it is works that belonged to private German collectors. We don't know which collectors or which paintings,'' said Moscow German Embassy spokesman Rainhold Frickhinger. ``It will be a surprise to all of us.''

by CNB