Stolen over 80 years ago by the Nazis, discovered recently, and now missing again - that's the story of the 'Portrait of a Lady' by Giuseppe Ghislandi. Its most recent chapter began this week in an Argentine estate listing and ended with police staring at an empty wall.
The Italian masterwork once belonged to Jacques Goudstikker, a leading Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam. In May 1940, as the Nazis swept into the Netherlands, Goudstikker fled by sea. He died in an accident during the escape and was buried in England.
With him gone, his vast collection of over 1,100 artworks fell into Nazi hands. Senior officials bought the works in a forced sale, including Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring, one of Adolf Hitler's confidants. Some pieces were later recovered in Germany and entered the Dutch national collection, while others disappeared into private hands.
Among those was Portrait of a Lady, a late-Baroque painting of the Contessa Colleoni by Ghislandi.
Documents uncovered by Dutch newspaper AD suggest that by the end of the war, the portrait had been acquired by Friedrich Kadgien, an SS officer and Goring's senior financial aide. Kadgien fled Europe in 1945, first to Switzerland, then Brazil, and eventually Argentina, where he became a successful businessman.
American interrogators once described Kadgien as a "snake of the lowest sort," as per the BBC. A US file said, "Appears to possess substantial assets, could still be of value to us." He died in Buenos Aires in 1979, but evidence suggests the painting remained with his family.
For decades, the Ghislandi portrait seemed lost. Then it was sighted on the website of an Argentine real estate agency. In the image, Portrait of a Lady hung above a sofa in a property near Buenos Aires. The house was being sold by one of Kadgien's daughters.
Experts who examined the photo had little doubt about its authenticity. "There is no reason to think this could be a copy," said Annelies Kool and Perry Schrier of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE).
When Argentine police searched the Mar del Plata house earlier this year, the portrait was nowhere to be found.
In its place was "a generously dimensioned tapestry of a landscape and horses." The wall still bore marks, indicating another work hung there until recently, The Guardian reported.
"The painting is not in the house ... but we're going to keep searching for it," federal prosecutor Carlos Martinez told local media. Investigators seized other items, including two firearms, engravings and prints, but the Ghislandi portrait had once again slipped away.
One of Kadgien's daughters, asked by AD about the work, replied, "I don't know what information you want from me, and I don't know what painting you are talking about."
The property listing that briefly revealed the painting has since been taken down. Kadgien's daughter has changed her social media name, and no charges have yet been filed.
The Goudstikker family has long campaigned to reclaim what was stolen. In 2006, his heir Marei von Saher recovered 202 pieces, but many remain missing. "My family aims to bring back every single artwork robbed from Jacques' collection, and to restore his legacy," von Saher said at the time.
