Monday, September 7th 2026 - 09:01 UTC
An Argentine federal court on Friday ordered the return of the painting Portrait of a Lady to the family of Dutch Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, almost 90 years after the Nazi regime looted his collection in Amsterdam. The work surfaced last year at a house in Mar del Plata, 400 kilometres from Buenos Aires.
The ruling was issued at a hearing chaired by federal judge Santiago Inchausti, attended by prosecutors, the heir's lawyers and the defendants. Patricia Kadgien and her husband, Juan Carlos Cortegoso, had been accused of possessing and concealing a work of art stolen in the context of a genocide. After initially arguing they were the legitimate owners by inheritance, they accepted an agreement with prosecutors to avoid trial and irrevocably renounced any right over the painting. The deal includes a donation of 4.8 million pesos, around 3,200 dollars, to the support association of a maternal and child hospital. Prosecutor Carlos Martínez said the outcome amounts to “a reparation of a historic character for the victims”.
Patricia Kadgien is the daughter of Friedrich Kadgien, an SS member and financial expert for the National Socialist regime from 1938, with a prominent role in currency purchases and in the plunder of occupied territories. A 1945 US report described him as “a snake of the worst kind”. He fled to Switzerland, then Brazil and finally Argentina, where he established himself as a businessman and died in 1978 without ever facing trial.
