Argentine couple to return Nazi-looted painting to rightful owner

A tribunal in Argentina has ruled that the late‑baroque Portrait of a Lady, a painting stolen by the Nazis and recovered in the country last year, must be returned to the heir of its original owner. The work had been missing for 80 years until it appeared in photographs of a property for sale near Buenos Aires. The residence belonged to Patricia Kadgien, the daughter of Nazi fugitive Friedrich Kadgien, who agreed to surrender the painting to avoid prosecution for concealing it from authorities. Portrait of a Lady is among roughly 1,000 artworks looted from the collection of Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. Marei von Saher, Goudstikker’s daughter‑in‑law and sole heir, said she intends to lend the painting temporarily to the Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires to raise awareness of the issue, as reported by Clarín. Von Saher has previously stated her family’s aim: "aims to bring back every single artwork robbed from Jacques' collection, and to reconstruct his legacy". The painting was first identified in August 2025 by the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad after appearing on a real‑estate website for a property in Mar del Plata, where it hung above a green sofa in the Kadgien living room. Friedrich Kadgien had served as a top advisor to Hermann Göring, Hitler’s deputy, who plundered thousands of works across Europe.