Daughter of Nazi believed to have stolen painting from Jewish art dealer on house arrest

The daughter of a Nazi leader who died in Argentina has been put on house arrest after a painting believed to have been stolen from a Jewish art dealer during World War II emerged in a recent real estate listing of her family’s Argentina home.

Patricia Kadgien and her partner, Juan Carlos Cortegoso, have been put on a 72-hour house arrest as part of the search for the painting “Portrait of a Lady,” an 18th-century portrait of Countess Colleoni by Vittore Ghislandi, the Argentinian public prosecutor’s office said in a news release.

It’s thought that the painting was sold to Kadgien’s father, Friedrich Kadgien, in 1944, Yaél M. Weitz, attorney for Marei von Saher, the daughter-in-law of the painting’s owner, art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, told USA TODAY.

Friedrich Kadgien was a financial advisor to Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring, Hitler’s second-in-command, according to the Associated Press and ABC News. He settled in Argentina after World War II, where he spent the remainder of his life. He died in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, in 1978, the outlets said.

USA TODAY contacted Patricia Kadgien and reached out to Cortegoso on his social media, but neither has responded as of Tuesday, Sept. 2.

Dutch newspaper sees painting hanging in Patricia Kadgien’s living room

Argentinian authorities conducted four simultaneous raids at different locations in Mar del Plata, a city on the country’s Atlantic coastline, about 250 miles from Buenos Aires, on Monday, Sept. 1. Police did not recover the painting during the raids, and it has not been handed over to the court. Its current location is unknown, officials said.

Authorities managed to seize two paintings from one of the family’s properties that could date back to the 1800s. Additional drawings and prints were also found. Visual arts experts will analyze them to determine if they are related to paintings stolen during World War II, police said.

Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad first discovered the artwork as part of a 10-year probe. According to the outlet, the painting was hanging in Kadgien’s living room in a real estate listing. It’s the first known color photograph of the artwork, which is featured in a database of lost art.

Staff from Algemeen Dagblad later contacted the real estate agency and inquired about the painting.

On Tuesday, Aug. 26, authorities searched the property, but the painting was no longer hanging in the living room.

Instead, a horse tapestry was hanging in its place, police said. Authorities captured photos of marks on the wall and a hook located above the tapestry that could have been used to hang the painting, officials added.

In that raid, police seized the couple’s cellphones and two firearms. Authorities also found two folders containing drawings, engravings and prints containing German text, which are believed to date to the 1940s.

It’s not clear what “Portrait of a Lady” could be worth today, but similar artworks by Ghislandi have sold at auctions for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Daughter-in-law of painting’s owner wants artwork returned to her family

Marei von Saher, 81, the daughter-in-law of Jacques Goudstikker, a Jewish Dutch art gallery owner and one of Europe’s leading art dealers in the years leading up to the war, is the painting’s rightful heir, her attorneys told USA TODAY.

She’s been searching for the family’s missing art pieces since the 1990s. So far, she’s been able to recover around 350 out of roughly 1,200 works.

“I remain committed to reclaiming the painting and having it returned to my family. It is what is just and fair,” said von Saher in a written statement. “It is my goal to recover each and every looted Goudstikker work, and to restore my family’s legacy.”

What do art experts think of the discovery?

World War II Cultural Goods researchers Annelies Kool and Perry Schrier, both of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, told USA TODAY in a statement that while they hadn’t physically examined the painting shown in the photograph, and cannot therefore verify the back of the canvas for marks proving its authenticity, they believe, “it is reasonably likely that this is indeed the 18th-century portrait.”

The dimensions appear to match those listed on the original declaration form, the researchers noted.

Commenting on the painting’s most recent disappearance, Kool and Schrier said, “It is disappointing that it has not yet been found. After all, the purpose of our work is to bring looted heritage from the Second World War to light and, where possible, return it to the rightful owners.”

History of Goudstikker’s collection

Between 1933 and 1945, German troops and Nazi agents seized or forced the sale of approximately one-fifth of all Western art that was in existence, totaling nearly 650,000 art pieces, von Saher’s attorney said in court records obtained by USA TODAY. Some estimated that the total value of the stolen artwork was about $2.5 billion at the time and is now worth $20.5 billion. More than 100,000 artworks from that period are still unaccounted for, the documents continue.

Goudstikker’s extensive art collection was forcibly sold after he and his family fled the Netherlands during the Nazi invasion in May of 1940, according to the court documents, which say he died that same month.

The Goudstikker Gallery was discovered in a seventeenth-century canal in Amsterdam, and included works by Rembrandt and Van Gogh, as well as Jan Steen and Jacob van Ruisdael, the court documents state. Goudstikker left the paintings behind but took a black notebook containing the details of his collection, which helped his family recover the lost artwork.

During the war, the majority of the collection was sent to Göring’s estate in Berlin, where the pieces remained until the end of the war, according to the court documents.

Michelle Del Rey is a trending news reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at mdelrey@usatoday.com

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Daughter of Nazi believed to have stolen painting put on house arrest