Argentina court orders return of Nazi-looted portrait found in real estate listing

An Argentine court has ordered the return of “Portrait of a Lady,” an 18th-century painting looted by the Nazis from Jewish Dutch art dealer Jacques Goudstikker’s collection, to his sole heir, Marei von Saher. The work, attributed to Italian painter Giuseppe Ghislandi, was rediscovered in 2025 in photographs from a real estate listing for a home in Mar del Plata owned by Patricia Kadgien, daughter of Nazi official Friedrich Kadgien. After the painting disappeared during police searches and was later surrendered, Kadgien and her husband agreed to relinquish their claim in exchange for avoiding a criminal trial, accepting court supervision and making donations to local hospitals. The restitution is part of a broader effort to recover more than 1,000 works seized from Goudstikker after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, many of which remain missing. Von Saher plans to lend the painting temporarily to Buenos Aires’ Holocaust Museum.