A portrait by an Italian master, stolen by the Nazis from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam over 80 years ago, was accidentally discovered on a realtor's website advertising a house for sale in Argentina. This was reported by The Guardian, according to UNN.
Details
According to the publication, the painting in question is "Portrait of a Lady (Countess Colleoni)" by the late Baroque artist Giuseppe Ghislandi, also known as Fra Galgario.
The Dutch newspaper AD reported that it managed to find the work, which is listed in the database of lost artworks and marked by the Ministry of Culture of the Netherlands as "unreturned" after World War II.
It is noted that the "Portrait of a Lady" belonged to Jacques Goudstikker, a leading Dutch art dealer. He fled the Netherlands in mid-May 1940, escaping the Nazis, but died after falling into the hold of the ship that was transporting him to safety and breaking his neck.
Later, Goudstikker's entire collection, comprising over 1,100 artworks, was acquired through a forced sale for a fraction of its true value by Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring.
After World War II, some works were returned to Germany and exhibited as part of the Dutch national collection at the Rijksmuseum, before 202 of them were returned to the dealer's sole surviving heir, his daughter-in-law Marij von Saher, in 2006.
The "Portrait of a Woman" was not among them. The AD newspaper reported that it had discovered wartime documents indicating that this painting was one of two belonging to Friedrich Kadgien, a Nazi official, SS officer, and Göring's senior assistant, who fled to Switzerland in 1945.
According to researchers from the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands government, Annelies Kool and Perry Schrier, there is "no reason to think" it is a copy, adding that only an examination of the painting itself can confirm this.
Recall
In Great Britain, a 16th-century painting "Madonna and Child" by Antonio Solario, stolen from a museum in Italy over 50 years ago, was discovered. The lawyer promised to return the canvas to the city of Belluno.