Unveiled: The Nazis' Stolen Masterpiece Found in a Real Estate Listing

A federal court in Argentina recently announced the recovery of the Portrait of a Lady, an 18th-century painting by the Italian master Giuseppe Ghislandi. This large gold-framed portrait, looted by the Nazis during World War II, made its first public appearance in 80 years in the coastal city of Mar del Plata.

A color photo of the artwork surfaced last month in an online real estate listing, posted unwittingly by Patricia Kadgien. Her father, Friedrich, was a top adviser to Hermann Göring, one of Adolf Hitler’s closest aides, who orchestrated the plundering of thousands of artworks across Europe.

“We’re doing this simply so that the community to whom we partly owe the discovery of the work… can see these images,” federal prosecutor Daniel Adler stated in a press conference where the full-length portrait, dated to the early 18th century, was displayed.

On August 25, the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad (AD) reported the location of the painting in a real estate listing online. The listing, which has since been removed, showed the painting hanging above a green couch in a living room. This led to a breakthrough in AD’s long-running investigation into Kadgien.

The painting was not found during a raid on the property that followed the publication of the report. However, two other paintings believed to date to the 19th century and several drawings were discovered. The court is currently determining whether these works were also looted during the war.

Prosecutors stated that the Ghislandi painting was returned by Patricia Kadgien’s lawyer. Patricia, one of the two daughters of the former Nazi official, and her husband have been placed under house arrest. They will face a hearing on charges of concealment of the stolen artwork and obstruction of justice.

The painting originally belonged to Jacques Goudstikker, a well-known Dutch-Jewish art dealer. It had long been on Dutch and international lists of missing artworks. The Nazis forced Goudstikker to sell his gallery to Göring and his banker Alois Miedl.

After the defeat of the Third Reich, several high-ranking Nazis, including Kadgien, fled to South America using escape routes called ‘ratlines’. Kadgien fled from the Netherlands in 1946, first to Switzerland, then Brazil, and finally Argentina, where he died in Buenos Aires in 1978.

The AD article reported that Goudstikker’s descendants planned to stake a claim to the painting. Goudstikker had recorded his inventory of about 1,400 artworks in a black notebook that he carried when he fled Nazi-occupied Netherlands in 1940 with his wife and son. He died on a cargo ship bound for England, but his widow retained the notebook.

Ariel Bassano, an art expert involved in the case, stated that the painting is in good condition for its age, dating from 1710, and estimated its value at around $50,000, as reported by the La Capital Mar del Plata newspaper.