Painting Stolen by Nazis Is Finally Going Home

A long-missing work of art spotted in an Argentine real estate listing is now heading back to the family it was taken from by the Nazis. An Argentine court has ordered the return of Giacomo Antonio Melchiorre Ceruti's 18th-century "Portrait of a Lady" to Marei von Saher, heir to Dutch Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, whose gallery was looted after he fled the Netherlands in 1940, reports the Art Newspaper.

The painting, valued at about $288,000, had been in the family of Nazi official Friedrich Kadgien, who settled in Mar del Plata after the war. However, its whereabouts were unknown until sleuths spotted it hanging above a couch in the home of his daughter Patricia, per Smithsonian Magazine. She and her husband avoided trial on concealment charges by surrendering all claims to the work. Lawyers say the case is without precedent because Argentina's criminal courts ordered restitution from private hands, not a state or museum.