Argentine Court Approves Return of Nazi-Looted Portrait to Jewish Art Dealer’s Heir

BUENOS AIRES – An Italian portrait missing for decades after being seized from a prominent Jewish art dealer during World War II is now poised to return to his heir, after an Argentine court on Friday endorsed an agreement in which the daughter of a fugitive Nazi official surrendered her claim to the artwork instead of going to trial.

The court-approved deal clears a major hurdle in the restitution of “Portrait of a Lady” to Marei von Saher, the only surviving heir of Dutch-Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker. His renowned art collection was forcibly sold to Nazi figures after Adolf Hitler’s forces invaded the Netherlands in 1940.

Patricia Kadgien, whose father was the late senior Nazi official Friedrich Kadgien, and her husband, Juan Carlos Cortegoso, were charged last year with aggravated cover-up. Prosecutors alleged the couple concealed the 18th-century painting even though they knew Argentine and international investigators were searching for it.

According to a copy of the agreement obtained by The Associated Press, Kadgien and Cortegoso agreed to relinquish any ownership claim and allow the painting to be returned to von Saher. In exchange, they will avoid a criminal trial and remain under court supervision for two years. As part of the arrangement, they must make payments to a hospital in Mar del Plata, the Argentine coastal city where they live, and notify authorities of their movements.

The resolution brings to a close a decades-spanning hunt for the lost Nazi-looted artwork and a legal battle that began in August 2025. The case took a dramatic turn when Dutch journalists researching Friedrich Kadgien, a Nazi financial official who escaped to Argentina after the war, noticed “Portrait of a Lady” displayed above a green velvet sofa in an online real estate listing for his daughter’s rural-style home in Mar del Plata.

The listing disappeared within hours of the Rotterdam-based newspaper Algemeen Dagblad publishing its findings. Police raided the home several times but failed to find the painting. More than a week later, Kadgien’s lawyer turned it over to authorities.

For decades, the portrait had been identified as a work by the Italian Baroque painter Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi. It appeared under that attribution in Goudstikker’s collection records and was exhibited as a Ghislandi in Amsterdam before the war. But a court-ordered examination by Argentina’s National Academy of Fine Arts reached a different conclusion, attributing the work to the Italian artist Giacomo Antonio Melchiorre Ceruti.

Experts authenticated the painting as part of Goudstikker’s collection and estimated its value at about 250,000 euros ($290,000).

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Goudstikker was one of Europe’s leading art dealers before World War II, known for a collection that included works by Rembrandt and Vermeer. He died in a shipwreck while fleeing Amsterdam with his family as German forces swept into the Netherlands in May 1940.

An estimated 1,100 works from his collection were illegally sold to Hermann Göring, known as Hitler’s right-hand man, who amassed a vast art collection during the war. It remains unclear exactly how “Portrait of a Lady” came into the possession of Kadgien, Göring’s financial adviser, who handled foreign currency, precious metals and the sale of confiscated property for the Nazi regime.

Kadgien fled Europe after Germany’s defeat, first for Switzerland and later Argentina. He died in the South American country in 1978 without having been arrested or charged with war crimes.

Lawyers for von Saher, who now lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, and spent decades trying to recover her family’s looted art, said she has agreed to let the painting be exhibited in Argentina before being returned to her.

During last year’s raids on homes owned by Kadgien and her sister in Mar del Plata, Argentine police also seized two 19th-century paintings, along with other prints and engravings. Authorities are still investigating whether any of them may also have been looted during World War II.

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Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.