A painting by an Italian master stolen by the Nazis from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam has been spotted, more than 80 years after it went missing, on the website of an estate agent trying to sell the house of a deceased SS man in Argentina, the BBC reports tonight.
The photo shows Giuseppe Ghislandi's "Portrait of a Lady" hanging above a sofa in that house near Buenos Aires.
The estate was owned by a high-ranking Nazi official who moved to South America after World War II.
The painting, which is in a database of lost wartime art, was found when the official's daughter put her house up for sale, Dutch newspaper AD reported, as reported by the BBC.
This artwork is among hundreds looted from art dealer Jacques Goudstiker, who helped other Jews escape the Nazis during the war.
Goudstiker died in a sea accident while fleeing from Holland. He was buried in England.
More than 1.100 works from Goudstiker's collection were purchased, at forced sale, by high-ranking Nazis after his death. Among them was Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring.
After the war, some of the works were found in Germany and exhibited in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam as part of the Dutch national collection.
Goudstiker's sole surviving heir, daughter-in-law Marei von Saher, took over 202 works in 2006, AD reports.
But one painting, a portrait of Countess Colleoni, by the late Baroque portraitist Giuseppe Ghislandi, had not been found until today.
The AD investigation uncovered wartime documents indicating that the painting was in the possession of Friedrich Kadzien, an SS officer and close financial advisor to Hermann Goering.
This SS man escaped to Switzerland in 1945, then moved to Brazil and then to Argentina, where he became a successful businessman.
Kajien – described by American investigators as "a snake of the lowest order" – died in 1979.
The American file that AD had access to mentions a note about Kadžijen: "He appears to own significant assets, which could still be of value to us."
The newspaper writes that for several years he tried to speak with the two daughters of the late Nazi in Buenos Aires about their father and the missing works of art, but all was unsuccessful.
But the journalists got lucky when one of Kajien's daughters put her late father's house up for sale, and the deal was taken by a real estate agent specializing in expensive Argentine properties.
"There is no reason to think that this could be a copy," said Anneliese Kuhl and Peri Schrier of the Netherlands Agency for Cultural Heritage (RCE), who reviewed the images at the request of the AD.
Another stolen artwork – a floral still life by 17th-century Dutch painter Abraham Mignon – was also spotted on the social media profile of one of the daughters of the deceased SS man, AD reports.
All attempts to speak to the sisters since the photo was spotted have failed, the AD claims, with one of them telling the newspaper: "I don't know what information you want from me, and I don't know what picture you're talking about."
Lawyers for Goudstiker's estate said they would make every effort to recover the painting.
"My family aims to return every piece of art looted from Jacques' collection and to restore his legacy," von Sacher said.
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