Argentina officials said on Wednesday they have recovered an iconic 18th-century Italian portrait stolen looted 80 years ago from a Jewish collector by a fugitive Nazi officer who settled in Argentina after World War II. They did not yet announce where it was found.
Officials previously conducted raids at homes in the coastal city of Mar de Plata in search of the art, a portrait of Contessa Colleoni by Italian artist Giuseppe Ghislandi, after it was seen in a photo on a real estate listing.
The painting is featured on a database of works of art stolen by the Nazis.
A police raid a week ago on a seaside villa south of Buenos Aires had turned up potentially relevant German documents and prints from the 1940s, but not the sought-after stolen painting, the federal public prosecutor’s office said.
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Painting stolen by the Nazis from a Jewish art dealer seen in a real estate ad hanging on the wall of a home in Argentina
(Photo: Mara Sosti / AFP)
Reporters for the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad spotted what appeared to be the famous painting last month in a real estate ad for a home believed to be owned by the descendants of Nazi fugitive Friedrich Kadgien while searching for stolen artwork from the Netherlands.
Citing Dutch art experts, the Rotterdam-based paper reported that the original “Portrait of a Lady” appeared to be hanging above a velvet sofa in the living room of a chalet for sale in Argentina’s coastal town of Mar del Plata. The paper published photos showing the painting in a 3D tour of the interior.
Acting on an alert from Interpol, the international police organization, Argentine authorities entered the house with a search warrant last month. To their surprise, hanging on the wall behind the green velvet sofa where the painting had been pictured was a large pastoral tapestry of horses.
Investigators also noticed a hook and marks on the wall, suggesting that a framed painting had been removed recently, the statement said.
During their raid, officers seized cell phones and two unregistered firearms as well as drawings, engravings and documents from the 1940s that they said could advance the investigation.
The developments reopened a shadowy chapter in the history of this South American nation, which sheltered scores of Nazis who fled Europe to avoid prosecution for war crimes, including high-ranking party members and notorious architects of the Holocaust like Adolf Eichmann. Under the government of Argentine General Juan Perón, whose first tenure lasted from 1946 until his overthrow in 1955, fugitive German fascists brought plundered Jewish property with them, including gold, bank deposits, paintings, sculptures and furnishings.
‘Portrait of a Lady’ was taken from a Jewish art dealer
The official Dutch database of missing WWII art, maintained by the Cultural Heritage Agency, identifies the oil-on-canvas “Portrait of a Lady” as belonging to Dutch Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker before the Nazi takeover of his prominent Amsterdam gallery as Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940.
Through outright looting or coercive sales, agents acting on behalf of the Nazis made off with countless artworks from private Dutch-Jewish dealers. An estimated 1,100 works in Goudstikker’s inventory were sold illegally to Hermann Goering, known as Adolf Hitler’s right-hand man.
Goudstikker’s sole surviving heir, 81-year-old Marei von Saher, has long pursued restitution for her father-in-law’s stolen works. In a landmark 2006 case, the Dutch government agreed to return 202 looted paintings from Goudstikker’s collection to von Saher after a protracted legal battle.