Nazi-Looted Art That Showed Up in Odd Place Is Recovered

An Argentine federal court announced Wednesday that authorities had recovered the long-lost "Portrait of a Lady," an 18th-century work by the Italian painter Giuseppe Ghislandi that was looted by the Nazis in World War II, the AP reports. Before the presentation of the giant gold-framed portrait Wednesday in the Argentine coastal city of Mar del Plata, the painting had not been seen publicly in 80 years. The first-ever color photo of the portrait surfaced last month in an online real estate listing unwittingly posted by one of the daughters of Friedrich Kadgien, the fugitive Nazi officer accused of stealing the painting from one of Europe's most prominent prewar art dealers and collectors.

"We're doing this simply so that the community to whom we partly owe the discovery of the work ... can see these images," federal prosecutor Daniel Adler said in a press conference to display the full-length portrait of Countess Colleoni, her hair ink-black and dress embroidered with pastel flowers. Dutch journalists made the shocking discovery while investigating Kadgien's past in Argentina, where the high-ranking official fled after the collapse of the Third Reich and later died in 1978. The descendants of the painting's original owner, Dutch-Jewish art collector Jacques Goudstikker, have sought to recover an estimated 1,100 paintings missing since the forced sale of Goudstikker's extensive inventory to Adolf Hitler's right-hand man, Hermann Göring. The heirs plan to reclaim the portrait, the Guardian reports.

The sudden reappearance of "Portrait of a Lady" last week was fleeting. Within hours of the story's publication last Monday, the real estate listing was taken down. Police raided the rustic Mar del Plata home of Patricia Kadgien, the Nazi officer's daughter, but the painting wasn't there. Authorities earlier this week raided other homes belonging to the Kadgien sisters in Mar del Plata, seizing paintings and engravings that they similarly suspected of having been stolen during the 1940s. Argentina's federal prosecutor's office placed Patricia Kadgien and her husband under house arrest pending a hearing Thursday on charges of concealment and obstruction of justice. Adler, the prosecutor, told reporters that the couple's lawyer had handed over the painting to authorities earlier Wednesday.