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Search Intensifies for Nazi-Looted Portrait Spotted in Argentine Real-Estate Listing

Investigators now aim to verify the work after a listing photo prompted a raid that found no painting.

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The Dutch Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker kept a record of his holdings in a pocket notebook in the 1930s. Among the paintings he owned when he died was one that has reappeared in a real estate ad in August 2025 in Buenos Aires. (Black book by Marcel Antonisse/AFP via Getty Images; real estate photograph from Robles Casas & Campas)
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Argentine police raided a house in Mar del Plata for a suspected Nazi-looted artwork seen in a for-sale ad

Overview

  • The Netherlands’ Cultural Heritage Agency says the image is almost certainly Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi’s Portrait of a Lady but stresses that definitive identification requires an in-person examination.
  • Argentine authorities raided a house in Mar del Plata tied to a former aide to Hermann Göring’s family, did not find the painting, seized other items, and opened probes into possible concealment and smuggling as Interpol supports the search.
  • Dutch newspaper AD’s reporters located the portrait in photos on the Robles Casas & Campos property listing connected to one of Friedrich Kadgien’s daughters; the listing and images were removed after publication.
  • Archival records link the work to Dutch-Jewish dealer Jacques Goudstikker’s looted collection and to Kadgien’s postwar possession, aligning with the dimensions and composition seen in the listing photo.
  • Goudstikker’s heir Marei von Saher plans a formal restitution claim for the portrait, while researchers are also examining a possible Abraham Mignon still life visible on a family social media post.