A real estate office in Argentina accidentally "lit up" a painting stolen for Goering

The portrait of the Italian master Giuseppe Ghislandi, stolen by the Nazis from the collection of a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam, has been identified in photographs of a property for sale in Argentina.

More than eight decades after the Nazis confiscated works from the collection of the famous Amsterdam collector Jacques Gudstikker, one of them is "Portrait of a Lady (Countess Colleoni)" — suddenly appeared on the website of the Argentine real estate agency. In a photo advertising a house in a seaside town near Buenos Aires, the picture was visible above the sofa in the living room.

The Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad clarifies that the "Portrait of a Lady" was included in the database of wartime losses and is still listed by the Ministry of Culture of the Netherlands as "not returned."

Jacques Goodsticker fled the German invasion in May 1940, but died in a shipwreck while traveling. Soon after, his entire collection of more than 1,100 works was sold at a bargain price to Hermann Goering. After the war, some of the paintings were restored and transferred to the Rijksmuseum, and in 2006 202 works were returned to the sole heiress, the collector's daughter-in-law Mare von Sacher. However, "Portrait of a Lady" was not among the returned works. Wartime documents indicate that the painting was intended for an officer SS Friedrich Cadgien, who was considered a close associate of the war criminal Goering. After 1945, Kadgien fled to Switzerland, and then settled in Brazil and Argentina, where he died in 1978.

Experts of the Dutch Cultural Heritage Service Annelis Kuhl and Perry Schrier have already stated that there is no reason to consider the painting a copy. Marei von Saher, who is now 81 years old, has vowed to continue the fight for the return of works of art that once belonged to her father-in-law.

"My family intends to return all the works of art stolen from Jacques' collection and restore his legacy," she said.