A portrait by an Italian master that was looted by the Nazis during the Second World War may have resurfaced for the first time in 80 years – after it was apparently spotted in a property listing.
Argentinian police raided the villa in the coastal town of Mar del Plata, which is around 250 miles (410km) south of Buenos Aires, on Tuesday after they were alerted by Dutch journalists.
The 17th-century oil-on-canvas, named Portrait of a Lady, was painted by Baroque artist Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi.
The artwork had belonged to Dutch Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker before the Nazi takeover of his prominent Amsterdam gallery in May 1940.
Reporters working for the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad – who have been carrying out a years-long investigation into high-ranking Nazi official Friedrich Kadgien and the Jewish artefacts he stole – reported how they saw the painting hanging in a room in a property listing on Monday.
The home is believed to have been owned by the descendants of Kadgien.
The listing was still live late on Tuesday, but the image of the apparent portrait, first seen in a 3D tour of the home’s interior, appears to have been removed.
Sky News has contacted the estate agents, Robles Casas & Campos, for comment.
Federal prosecutor Carlos Martinez has said the painting was not found in the house when police raided, but officers seized “other items that could be useful for the investigation, such as weapons, some engravings, prints and period reproductions”.
He said investigators are examining possible charges of concealment and smuggling.
The art of the steal
The official Dutch database of missing Second World War art, maintained by the Netherlands’ Cultural Heritage Agency, identifies the painting as having originally belonged to Mr Goudstikker.
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Through outright looting or coercive sales, agents acting on behalf of the Nazis made off with countless artworks from private Dutch-Jewish dealers.
Mr Goudstikker’s paintings were sold illegally to Hermann Goering, known as Adolf Hitler’s right-hand man, after his gallery was taken over by the Nazis.
The Dutch database lists “Portrait of a Lady” as having later passed into the hands of a man named Kadgien from Berlin.
A search of the German Federal Archives records the existence of only one Nazi party member with that surname – Friedrich Gustav Kadgien, who oversaw foreign currency, precious metals and the sale of confiscated property as a financial aide to Mr Goering.
Following the German defeat in the Second World War, Mr Kadgien fled to Switzerland, then Argentina, according to a declassified report from the Central Intelligence Agency.
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Members of the Kadgien family and their business dealings show up repeatedly in Argentine judicial and property registries beginning in the 1950s.
Mr Kadgien was never charged with crimes related to the Nazi regime during decades in Argentina.
He died in 1978 in Buenos Aires, according to local media reports.
Mr Goudstikker’s sole surviving heir, his daughter-in-law Marei von Saher, has long pursued restitution for the art dealer’s stolen works.
In a landmark 2006 case, the Dutch government agreed to return 202 looted paintings from Mr Goudstikker’s collection to Ms von Saher after a protracted legal battle.
Argentina’s dark past
The investigation reopens a shadowy chapter in the history of Argentina, which sheltered scores of Nazis who fled Europe to avoid prosecution for war crimes after World War Two, including high-ranking party members and notorious architects of the Holocaust like Adolf Eichmann.
Under the government of Argentine General Juan Peron, whose first tenure lasted from 1946 until his overthrow in 1955, fugitive German fascists brought plundered Jewish property with them from the other side of the world, including gold, bank deposits, paintings, sculptures and furnishings.
The fate of those items continues to make news decades later as the process of restitution drags along in Argentina and beyond.
