Topline
A work by Italian Baroque painter Giuseppe Ghislandi that was looted by Nazis more than 80 years ago has reportedly been found after reporters for a Dutch newspaper spotted it in a photo included in an Argentinian real estate listing.
Self-portrait in the act of painting, 1732, by Giuseppe Ghislandi, oil on canvas,
De Agostini via Getty Images
Key Facts
“Portrait of a Lady (Contessa Colleoni)” was reportedly looted by the Nazis from Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker in 1940 and has remained missing ever since, even after other paintings stolen from the same dealer were later recovered and restored to his heir.
Reporters from the Dutch newspaper AD had traced the painting, listed in a database maintained by the German Lost Art Foundation, to the late SS officer Friedrich Kadgien, who fled to Switzerland in 1945 and later relocated to Argentina, where he started a family.
The paper spent years trying to speak with his daughters, who still owned his Argentine home, to no avail until a reporter sent to knock on their door found that the home was listed for sale.
AD reporter Cyril Rosman clicked through the online listing by real estate agency Robles Casas & Campos, and saw the missing painting hanging above a sofa in the living room of the property, where the paper said it still hangs today.
Marei von Saher, the 81-year-old daughter-in-law of Goudstikker and his sole heir, has been hunting for his paintings since the 1990s and plans to reclaim “Portrait of a Lady (Contessa Colleoni),” she told AD in a statement through her lawyer.
Restitution experts with auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s said they were unable to comment on the value of works not consigned for auction.
Other Ghislandi works have been offered at auction for as much as $500,000 and his paintings hang in various museums, including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
When contacted, one of Kadgien’s daughters reportedly told AD, “I don’t know what information you want from me and I don’t know what painting you’re talking about either.’
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Crucial Quote
“It is my family’s goal to find every work of art stolen from the Goudstiker collection, and to restore Jacques’ legacy,” von Saher’s statement said.
Key Background
Nazi forces stole extensive collections of art and cultural treasures from across Europe during World War II, primarily from Jewish owners who were sent to concentration camps. The Nazi Party began looting art in the early 1930s from Jewish dealers who were forced to sell their valuables before fleeing to safety, and an official confiscation group called the Einsatzstab Reichsleiters Rosenberg (ERR) was created in 1940. The EER targeted Jewish-owned art galleries and private art collections, as well as looting abandoned homes, and roughly 650,000 pieces of art were ultimately plundered, according to ESBCO. In 1943, the Allies created the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section made up of art scholars and curators who worked during the war to protect cultural heritage, and later focused on recovering stolen art. Known as the Monuments Men, the group is credited with saving tens of thousands of artworks. Hundreds of thousands remain missing, including “Portrait of a Young Man” by Raphael, “The Painter on the Road to Tarascon” by Vincent van Gogh and “The Astronomer” by Johannes Vermeer.
Tangent
Jacques Goudstikker was a Dutch art dealer who fled the Netherlands for the United States with his family in May 1940, immediately after the Nazi invasion. He died in an accident while escaping, and left behind roughly 1,400 paintings, drawings, sculptures and antiques in his gallery, according to The Jewish Museum. The bulk of his collection was looted by Hermann Göring, Adolf Hitler’s second-in-command and to whom Kadgien was a senior aide. After the war, more than 200 of the paintings were found and remained in the Dutch national collection until his family reclaimed them in 2006.
Further Reading
Robbery art from Amsterdam discovered in house daughter former Nazi: ‘I don’t know which painting you mean’ (AD)
Old master painting looted by Nazis spotted in Argentinian property listing (The Guardian)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2025/08/26/painting-looted-by-nazis-reportedly-found-in-argentinian-real-estate-listing/
