Eighty years after it was looted by Nazi forces from a Jewish art collector’s collection, a long-missing late-baroque masterpiece has been ordered returned to its rightful lineage following a surprising discovery hidden in plain sight in coastal Argentina.
The artwork, *Portrait of a Lady* (also referred to as *Contessa Colleoni*), was first spotted by pure chance in August 2025: a Dutch newspaper, Algemeen Dagblad, identified the painting in public listing photos posted by an estate agent advertising a home for sale in Mar del Plata, a popular coastal town just outside Buenos Aires. The canvas was hanging unassumingly above a green sofa in the living room of Patricia Kadgien, daughter of former Nazi fugitive Friedrich Kadgien.
Friedrich Kadgien, who fled to Argentina after World War II, was a senior adviser to Hermann Göring—Adolf Hitler’s second-in-command, who oversaw the mass plunder of thousands of artworks across occupied Europe. The portrait was one of more than 1,000 pieces stolen from the collection of Jacques Goudstikker, a prominent Jewish Dutch art dealer, following the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940.
After the painting was identified, authorities launched a search of Kadgien’s property in September 2025 that failed to turn up the artwork. Kadgien and her husband Juan Carlos Cortegoso were subsequently charged with concealment of stolen property and placed under house arrest. On Friday, however, a court in Mar del Plata reached a negotiated resolution: all criminal proceedings against the couple have been suspended in exchange for their full cooperation to return the painting and a financial settlement.
Under the terms of the agreement between Kadgien’s family, prosecutors, and Goudstikker’s heirs, Kadgien and Cortegoso will surrender all legal claims to the artwork. They have also agreed to donate 4.8 million Argentine pesos (equivalent to approximately £2,356 or $3,185) to local public hospitals in exchange for avoiding prosecution for concealing the stolen piece.
The sole surviving heir to Goudstikker’s collection is Marei von Saher, Goudstikker’s daughter-in-law. Per reporting from Argentine newspaper *Clarin*, von Saher plans to place the portrait on temporary loan to Buenos Aires’ Holocaust Museum, where it will be displayed to raise public awareness of Nazi-looted art and the ongoing work to return stolen cultural property to its rightful owners. Von Saher has long reaffirmed her family’s commitment to the recovery effort, stating previously that the goal remains “to bring back every single artwork robbed from Jacques’ collection, and to restore his legacy.”
Art historical scholarship on the portrait has been divided since its recovery. The work is broadly attributed to late-baroque Italian artist Giuseppe Ghislandi, though some experts have argued it may instead be the work of Giacomo Ceruti, another prominent Italian painter from the same historical period.