A Dutch newspaper said this week that it discovered a Nazi-looted painting from the Baroque era in a real estate listing for a home in Argentina. Not long afterward, the painting disappeared, triggering a police investigation.
Algemeen Dagblad reported that the painting, a portrait of a woman, was by Giuseppe Ghislandi, an artist who also went by the name Fra Galgario and is today known for its contributions to the late Baroque period in Italy. The Ghsilandi work is listed on a database of lost art and is currently classified as “unreturned” by the Dutch government.
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Per that database, the work once belonged to Jacques Goudstikker, a Jewish dealer who was based in Amsterdam prior to the rise of the Nazis. Amid the threat of persecution, Goudstikker fled the Netherlands, though he ended up dying during the journey in 1940 via an accident while on board a ship. His family later put down roots in the US.
Goudstikker amassed a significant collection of Old Masters paintings and sold them under duress. Some have even been returned to his family. In 2023, for example, a 16th-century painting attributed to the Dutch artist Cornelis van Haarlem was given back after a collector offered the work to the Musée Rolin in Autun, France.
In 2009, the Jewish Museum in New York staged a show of works that previously belonged to Goudstikker, with the show’s description noting at the time that his family had successfully recovered 200 works. Among the pieces in the show were paintings by Salomon van Ruysdael, Jacob van Ruisdael, and Jan van der Heyde.
His holdings reportedly included the Ghislandi portrait, which ended up in the possession of Friedrich Kadgien, an SS officer who resided in Switzerland by 1945. Then he went to Brazil and then to Argentina, where he died in 1978.
Cyril Rosman, the AD journalist, said he had tried to speak to Kadgien’s descendants but that he was unsuccessful in doing so. And Peter Schouten, another AD reporter, said he visited the home in Mar del Plata that appeared to contain the Ghislandi painting. “There was certainly someone at home, we saw a shadow moving in the corridor, but no one opened,” Schouten wrote.
Finally, the paper made contact with the family of Kadgien, whose daughters reportedly live in Buenos Aires. “I don’t know what information you want from me and I don’t know what painting you are talking about,” the daughters said.
Robles Casas & Campas, the firm that was marketing the Mar del Plata home, has since deleted the listing, and Kadgien’s daughter has changed her name on Instagram, AD reported.
Then, after the AD report was published, La Nación reported that the painting had been removed from the living room. Hanging in its place is what the paper described as “a generously dimensioned tapestry of a landscape and horses.”
“The painting is not in the house … but we’re going to keep searching for it,” a federal prosecutor told the Argentinian media. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Interpol has also gotten involved in the case.
On social media, the story has gone viral. One post on X with a screenshot of the Guardian’s report on the matter reads, “Fork found in kitchen.” That post now has more than 8,000 likes.