Argentine court approves return of Nazi-looted portrait to heir
A court in Buenos Aires, Argentina, approved an agreement to return the painting Portrait of a Lady, which the Nazis stole after invading the Netherlands in 1940, to the heir of Dutch art dealer Jacques Goudstikker. As ABC News Australia reports, the portrait by Italian Baroque artist Giuseppe Ghislandi had been considered missing for more than eight decades.
Agreement approved by the court
Patricia Kadgien, the daughter of a fugitive Nazi official, relinquished her claim to the painting under the agreement, avoiding a trial. After the canvas was identified, Kadgien and her husband were charged with concealing the work; the couple was also under house arrest.
Under the agreement, they agreed to return the painting to Goudstikker's daughter-in-law and sole heir, Marei von Saher, and to donate approximately $3,200 to local hospitals. Federal prosecutor Carlos Martinez said expert examinations had confirmed the canvas's authenticity and good condition.
Portrait found in Mar del Plata
Last year, a Dutch newspaper identified the portrait in photographs of a house listed for sale in the coastal city of Mar del Plata. The painting hung in the living room of Kadgien's home. Her father, Friedrich Kadgien, was a financier for the Nazi paramilitary organization SS and fled to Argentina after World War II.
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Experts established that the canvas belonged to the Goudstikker collection and valued it at approximately €250,000. The portrait was among more than a thousand artworks stolen from the art dealer's collection after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands.
After the war, the Dutch state located around 300 works from the collection, most of which were later returned to Goudstikker's heirs. Other works remain in various countries.
The Ghislandi work is currently in the custody of Argentina's Supreme Court, and von Saher's legal team is to initiate the procedure for its transfer. Her lawyer, Guillermo Brady, said the family intends to exhibit the painting in Buenos Aires for at least a year and is in talks with several museums.
