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A 17th-century Italian painting looted by Nazis from a prominent Jewish Dutch art collector must be returned to the rightful owner’s heir, a judge in Argentina ruled on Friday.
Judge Santiago Inchausti approved a deal in which the daughter of a fugitive Nazi official agreed to give up her claim to the painting rather than face trial. This paves the way for the long-sought return of “Portrait of a Lady” to Maril von Saher, the sole surviving heir of art dealer Jacques Goudstikker. His much-celebrated collection of 1,100 paintings was sold under duress to Nazi officials after Adolf Hitler’s Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940.
The painting was recognized by the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad in a photo of a house for sale in the Argentine seaside resort of Mar del Plata in August 2025.
The painting was hanging above a green sofa in the living room of Patricia Kadgien, whose father, Friedrich Kadgien, was a financier for the Nazi SS paramilitary organization. He was one of the several high-ranking Nazis to escape to the South American country after World War II.
Patricia Kadgien and her husband, Juan Carlos Cortegoso, were charged with aggravated cover-up last year after authorities said they hid the 18th-century painting despite knowing Argentine and international investigators were seeking it.
Under the agreement, a copy obtained by The Associated Press, the couple agreed to give up any claim to the work and consent to its return to von Saher in exchange for avoiding a criminal trial and spending two years under court supervision. During that time, they must make payments to a hospital in Argentina’s coastal city of Mar del Plata, where they live, and keep authorities informed of their whereabouts.
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 $290,000.
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 to Switzerland and later to 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.
