BERLIN (AP) — Nearly 60 sculptures that belonged to Berlin's museums before World War II have been found at Moscow's Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees Berlin's state museums, said Thursday that the first Italian renaissance sculptures and fragments were identified last year. It then launched a joint research project with the Russian museum to research the pieces, long considered missing.

Foundation head Hermann Parzinger says 59 sculptures from the pre-war Berlin collection, in various conditions, have been identified. He said the German and Russian museums will examine how to catalog and restore the pieces. Final results aren't expected before 2019.

Thousands of valuable objects were seized from Germany at the end of the war. The Nazis also looted extensively in the countries they occupied.