During World War 2, the Nazi party stole countless pieces of priceless artwork to sell for profit and destroy/mock. Among these missing works is the 18th-century portrait, “Portrait of a Lady” by Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi. It’s believed that the work has now been found in a photo from an Argentinian real estate listing.
The ill-gotten Italian baroque piece was possibly spotted hanging over a sofa in a listing for a coastal residence.
“Portrait of a Lady”
The painting originally belonged to a prominent Dutch-Jewish art dealer named Jacques Goudstikker. Over 1,100 works in his collection were taken by the Nazis when they invaded the Netherlands in the 1940s. Some of these higher-value pieces ended up in the hands of high-ranking officers, such as Hermann Göring. While many of these works are believed to be lost due to malicious destruction or time, now and again, one will resurface.
Thankfully, “Portrait of a Lady” has Dutch daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad’s investigative journalists Cyril Rosman, Paul Post, and Peter Schouten on its side. The team has been tracking the portrait for nearly a decade.
They started off by digging into Göring’s financial adviser, Friedrich Kadgien. “Kadgien escaped to South America at the end of the war,” Rosman told ABC News. “We knew from archival documents that he brought diamonds, jewelry, and two stolen paintings with him. We’ve spent years trying to piece together his life here and where those paintings ended up.”
However, things get complicated when Kadgien passed in 1978 in Buenos Aires. This left inherited properties in Mar del Plata to Kadgien’s two daughters. After running down several leads that ended up nowhere, the group tried one last thing. They asked Schouten, their correspondent in Argentina, to visit one of the properties in person.
“I rang the bell. Nobody answered, but we saw movement inside,” he recalls. “Then we noticed a ‘For Sale’ sign in the garden.”
Armed with what seemed like a new lead, Schouten went back to his hotel, where he and his husband looked at the listing for the home.
The Discovery
“We were scrolling through the photos when my husband suddenly said, ‘Look, isn’t that the painting?'” he explains. “I told him, ‘No, that can’t be true. The Dutch government has been looking for this painting for 80 years … it can’t just be hanging above a sofa in Mar del Plata.’ But there it was.”
“I was scrolling through the listing, looking for photos of the father or maybe some old documents,” Rosman said about the photos. “I didn’t expect to find one of the paintings we’d been searching for just sitting there in the living room. It was surreal.”
This evidence was immediately sent to the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE), which keeps all official records on works stolen by the Nazis. However, even dedicated researchers like Annelies Kool cannot confirm its “Portrait of a Lady” without physically examining the painting. So, for now, RCE is “almost certain” it has been found.
The Investigation
“According to post-war declaration forms, we know that Kadgien possessed this painting,” says Kool. “Given that he fled to Argentina after the war and we now see it hanging in the living room of his daughters, we assume it has remained within the family for the past 80 years.”
“The measurements match, the composition matches, and visually it aligns with the archival images,” she adds. “But we would need to examine the back of the painting to confirm. There could be labels or marks proving it came from the Goudstikker collection.”
Thankfully, the team of investigators was able to provide a second set of images from “a separate source,” according to Schouten. This was all done after multiple failed attempts to speak to Kadgien’s daughters through email, Instagram, and WhatsApp. “After weeks, one of them finally responded,” Schouten said. “She asked what we wanted, said she was busy, and then blocked us.”
Then the listing was removed from the real estate agency, Robles Casas y Campos website….
Who Has a Claim To The Painting?
If this does prove to be “Portrait of a Lady,” Goudstikker’s 81-year-old daughter-in-law and sole heir, Marei von Saher, intends to claim it. She is currently being represented by U.S. attorneys Yael Weitz and Amelia Keuning of Freedman, Normand & Friedland, LLP.
“Our client does intend to make a claim,” Weitz said. “She is the sole heir of Jacques Goudstikker’s estate and her goal is to recover the artworks that were looted by the Nazis from her father-in-law.”
More Stolen Art
Kool believes that Kadgien’s daughters may also have a Dutch 17th-century floral still life by Abraham Mignon. The missing painting was listed in Kadgien’s possession in post-war declarations. It may have even been spotted in a Facebook post by one of them in 2012. But that piece’s ownership is murky and is not a part of Goudstikker’s collection.
“I have been on this quest since the late 1990s. My family’s goal is to locate and recover each and every artwork looted from Jacques Goudstikker’s collection and restore his legacy,” says von Saher.
We wish her the best of luck in that quest. We’ll keep you posted on updates about this situation as it develops.
