Authorities in Argentina are searching for an 18th-century Italian portrait believed to have been looted by a fugitive Nazi officer 80 years ago.
The painting has now surfaced in an advertisement for a property in the South American nation.
The Nazi officer is believed to have stolen the painting from the Jewish art collector Jacques Goudstikker.
Goudstikker had an extensive collection of over 1,000 paintings, which Nazi officials divided up after his death. Friedrich Kadgien took possession of the portrait and eventually settled in Argentina after World War II.
What did the police find?
Acting on an alert from international police agency Interpol, Argentinian police conducted a raid on a seaside villa south of Buenos Aires on Tuesday, the public prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday.
They found German documents and prints from the 1940s that are potentially relevant, but not the portrait of Countess Colleoni.
“The painting is gone. Only a carbine and a .32-caliber revolver were seized,” the prosecutor told reporters.
The painting in question is titled Portrait of a Lady and was painted by Italian Baroque artist Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi.
How did the painting resurface?
The search for the artwork was renewed when reporters from a Dutch newspaper spotted it in a real estate advertisement for a home believed to be owned by descendants of the Nazi fugitive Friedrich Kadgien.
The newspaper reported that the original painting appeared to be hanging above a velvet sofa in the living room of a cabin in the Argentinian city of Mar del Plata.
“Although we have not physically examined the painting and cannot verify the back of the canvas (for marks or labels that could help confirm its provenance), it is reasonably likely that this is indeed the 18th-century portrait of Countess Colleoni by Ghislandi,” said Annelies Kool and Perry Schrier, researchers from the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
At one point in its history, Argentina sheltered many Nazis who fled Europe to avoid persecution after World War II. They brought plundered Jewish property with them, including gold, bank deposits, paintings, sculptures, and furnishings.
- Agencies
