Argentina Returns Nazi-Looted Painting Found in the Home of an SS Financier

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... The shadow of the Nazi's has finally receded from an eighteenth-century painting hidden for decades in Argentina's coastal city of Mar del Plata. Credit: PABLO GONZALEZ – CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons. The long shadow of the Nazi's has finally receded from an eighteenth-century painting hidden for decades in Argentina's coastal city of Mar del Plata. After nearly ninety years of dispossession, Argentine federal justice has ordered the restitution of 'Portrait of a Lady' to the heirs of Jacques Goudstikker, a prominent Dutch Jewish art dealer who died in an accident while fleeing the Nazis in 1940. The recovery of the painting, executed by the Italian master Giacomo Ceruti (1698-1767), represents a rare triumph of historical memory over the enduring legacy of Holocaust-era looting. The painting's path to recovery is a testament to the persistent pursuit of historical truth. The artwork's trail vanished in Amsterdam after the Nazi's plundered Goudstikker's expansive gallery, which housed a collection of more than 1,100 pieces. It remained entirely lost to history until August 2025, when Peter Schouten, a correspondent for the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad, traveled to Argentina to investigate the descendants of Friedrich Kadgien. Kadgien was a notorious SS member and close collaborator of Hermann Göring, earning a reputation as the 'Financial Wizard' of the Nazi regime. Failing to secure an interview at the family's home, the reporter noticed a 'for sale' sign outside the property; later, while browsing the real estate agency's website, he spotted the missing masterpiece prominently displayed in the living room photos. Nazi war criminals in South America The presence of the painting in Mar del Plata, located 400 kilometers from Buenos Aires, is a direct reflection of Argentina's complex postwar history as a haven for fleeing war criminals. Friedrich Kadgien served as a top financial expert for the Nazi's starting in 1938, playing a pivotal role in extorting Jewish merchants in Amsterdam to finance the German war machine and plundering occupied territories. A 1945 United States intelligence report described Kadgien as a 'snake of the worst kind'. As the Axis powers collapsed, he fled with a trove of diamonds and stolen art, navigating through Switzerland and Brazil before settling in Argentina, where he successfully reinvented himself as a businessman and died unpunished in 1978. EL CUADRO ROBADO POR LOS NAZIS QUEDA EN CUSTODIA DE LA CORTE La pintura Retrato de una dama, expropiada en 1940 por el régimen nazi y hallada en Mar del Plata, quedó bajo resguardo de la Corte Suprema hasta que se determine su restitución definitiva. El óleo, que sería… pic.twitter.com/O4WBoq8nDp — Clarín (@clarincom) September 6, 2025 When Argentine authorities finally intervened, Kadgien's daughter, Patricia Kadgien, and her husband, Juan Carlos Cortegoso, were detained for 72 hours until they surrendered the artwork. Facing federal charges for possessing and concealing art stolen during a genocide, the couple initially argued they were the legitimate owners of an inherited heirloom. However, during a hearing presided over by Federal Judge Santiago Inchausti, the couple accepted a prosecutorial deal to avoid a public trial. The recovered painting will be temporarily exhibited in Argentina After irrevocably renouncing all rights to the painting, the couple agreed to donate 4.8 million pesos, approximately 3,200 dollars, to a local maternal-child hospital's cooperative. Federal prosecutor Carlos Martínez highlighted that the resolution serves as a 'reparation of a historical nature for the victims'. The recovered canvas, previously misattributed in Goudstikker's records to the painter Giuseppe Ghislandi before an appraisal by the Argentine Academy of Fine Arts confirmed Ceruti's authorship, carries an estimated market value of 250,000 euros. It is now under the custody of the Argentine Supreme Court in Buenos Aires and will be returned to Marei von Saher, Goudstikker's daughter-in-law, who, alongside her daughters Charlene and Chantal, has dedicated her life to recovering the family's stolen legacy. Von Saher's legal team emphasized that while she refuses to consent to '86 years of plunder,' she seeks neither revenge nor financial compensation, only the rightful return of her father-in-law's property. Before the painting leaves Argentina, the family intends to loan it to a Buenos Aires museum for temporary exhibition, utilizing the artwork to raise public awareness about the devastating cultural theft orchestrated by the Nazi regime.