Patricia Kadgian and her husband Juan Carlos Cortegoso were placed on July 1, 2025 under house arrest in Mar del Plata, as part of the table investigation Lady portrait Attributed to Giuseppe Ghislandi, a work pillaged during the Second World War and recently seen on photographs published in a real estate ad.
Argentine federal police led several searches to the main home, at the sister of Patricia Kadgian and in a second home. She noted the disappearance of the painting, photographed in the living room of the ad and replaced by a tapestry. They seized various objects, including engravings, prints, several firearms, a shirt illustrated with prints linked to a Matisse exhibition of the 1940s, as well as documents relating to the Second World War and two alleged tables of the 19th century.
The Kadgian couple, by the voice of their lawyer, Carlos Murias, said their will to “Cooperate with the authorities” while claiming the legitimacy of the table possession. He gave it to the authorities. The couple is continued to conceal the work of pillaged art, aggravated by the historical dimension of damage, and must be heard during the week.
The case broke out when a team of Dutch journalists identified the table on the site of a real estate agency thanks to a virtual visit to the family home, which sparked the legal proceedings. The work concerned, a portrait of the Countess Colleoni, is listed among the goods stolen from the Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker during the invasion of the Netherlands by the German army in 1940. After fled his country, Goudstikker died at sea; His collection, comprising more than a thousand hundred works, was forcibly sold to the Nazi dignitaries, including Hermann Göring. Several works, including the Lady portraitwere then transferred to Argentina by Friedrich Gustav Kadgien, SS officer and financial advisor to the regime.
The legitimate heiress of Jacques Goudstikker, Marei von Saher, has initiated judicial approaches aimed at the restitution of the work. Experts from the Cultural Heritage Agency in the Netherlands believe that“There is no reason to think that it could be a copy”.
