A judge in Argentina on Tuesday placed the daughter of a late Nazi under house arrest after police failed to find a painting believed to be in her possession, which was stolen from a Jewish person during the Holocaust.
The federal court at Mar Del Plata, a city situated about 250 miles south of Buenos Aires, placed Patricia Kadgien and her husband under house arrest for 72 hours on suspicion that they had interfered with an investigation into the whereabout of “Portrait of a Lady” by the late-Baroque painter Giuseppe Ghislandi, Argentina’s La Nacion newspaper reported.
Law enforcement agents in Argentina last week raided the couple’s house in search of the painting, but the object had been removed by the time they arrived. Three additional raids were authorized at properties belonging to the couple but the painting was not found.
The raids followed a media report in the Netherlands about the early 18th-century painting “Portrait of a Lady” by the Italian painter Fra Galgario aka Giuseppe Ghislandi (1655–1743).
The painting was seen on a real estate listing, where it casually appeared as part of the interior decoration of an asset in Mar del Plata, the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper, aka AD, reported on Monday. The paper’s research into how the painting got there led to Friedrich Kadgien, who had served as Hermann Göring’s financial adviser. Kadgien fled to Argentina after World War II and died there in 1978. The asset on sale belonged to his daughter Patricia.
Argentina’s Customs Collection and Control Agency (ARCA) last month asked the federal court in Mar del Plata to authorize it to seize the painting, but when agents arrived with the warrant, they found a tapestry in its place, along with old documents and firearms.
Prosecutors believe the couple are guilty of concealment and possible trafficking of stolen cultural property, El País reported. The couple petitioned the court to nullify the investigation, claiming the statute of limitation applied, according to La Nacion.
The painting belonged to Jewish Dutch art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, who sold it under duress in 1940.
Similar artworks by Fra Galgario have fetched only several thousand dollars, and some even less, at auction in recent years.
Goudstikker’s sole heir, his daughter-in-law Marei von Saher, 81, has said she plans to file a claim and launch legal action to have the painting restored to her family.