By Miguel Lo Bianco and Lucila Sigal
MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina (Reuters) -Argentina officials said on Thursday they are investigating the daughter of a former Nazi official and her husband after authorities recovered an iconic painting that had been missing for 80 years.
The piece, which was looted from Amsterdam-based art dealer Jacques Goudstikker during World War Two, will remain in Argentina as procedures begin for its potential return to the Netherlands or the original owner’s heirs, prosecutors said in a hearing on Thursday.
Patricia Kadgien, daughter of former Nazi SS officer Friedrich Kadgien, and her husband Juan Carlos Cortegoso, are under investigation for aggravated concealment, according to officials, who had conducted raids of several properties connected to the couple to find the missing art.
A dramatic search for the masterpiece painting, a portrait of Contessa Colleoni by Italian artist Giuseppe Ghislandi, kicked off after it was spotted in a photo on a real estate listing for a house in the coastal city of Mar del Plata, owned by Patricia Kadgien. Authorities announced Wednesday that they recovered the painting.
An Argentine judge lifted the couple’s house arrest but imposed an 180-day travel ban, ordering them to surrender their passports, and barred them from leaving their home for more than 24 hours without court approval.
The prosecutor said the couple attempted to obstruct the investigation by taking down the online real estate listing, removing a “For Sale” sign and replacing the painting with a tapestry ahead of a police raid.
Defense lawyer Carlos Murias denied concealment charges, saying his clients complied fully and were willing to hand over the painting. He dismissed claims of obstruction, saying the civil action was to determine ownership, not to hide the artwork.
Murias called a 180-day travel ban “excessive” but accepted it after clarification. He also agreed to send the painting to the Holocaust Museum for safekeeping.
During raids, investigators seized engravings, prints, drawings and two 19th-century paintings, officials said. If those works are determined to have been looted, there could be more charges against the couple.
Kadgien’s father, Friedrich Kadgien, was a senior Nazi official who fled to Argentina after the war. He died in 1979.
The painting will be registered with Argentina’s Supreme Court. Prosecutors requested it be held at the Buenos Aires Holocaust Museum, without public exhibition, while its ultimate ownership is determined.
(Reporting by Miguel Lo Bianco in Mar del Plata and Lucila Sigal in Buenos Aires, Writing by Natalia Siniawski; editing by Diane Craft)
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