It’s the story of a ‘stolen’ painting that has taken the world by storm.
The 18th-century work ‘Portrait of a Lady’, allegedly stolen from a Jewish collector more than 80 years ago, was spotted in an estate agent photo hanging on the wall of a home owned by the daughter of Nazi Friedrich Kadgien.
Yet when police in the Argentine city of Mar del Plata searched the home, they found a tapestry in its place – with only a hook and marks on the wall signalling what had been there before.
It sparked an intense search for the missing work that is still ongoing, with Kadgien’s daughter Patricia and other family members remaining silent amidst the hunt.
Now though, experts have spotted that the pattern on a table seen in the same bombshell photo bears a strong resemblance to a swastika, which was the symbol of the Nazi regime.
Respected historian Robin Schaefer told the Daily Mail: ‘I find it very difficult to construct any case in which that isn’t a swastika.
‘There is no option in which that isn’t an intentional design. Although maybe she [Patricia] acquired it.’
His comments came after the chief executive of expert body the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art said in a blog post that the coffee table pattern ‘by mistake or design forms the shape of a swastika.’
Although an ancient religious symbol most strongly associated with Hinduism, the swastika is now synonymous with far-right hatred and mass murder after being co-opted by the Nazi Party.
It was the central part of Nazi Germany’s national flag during Adolf Hitler’s rule.
The Nazi swastika did not look exactly the same as the traditional religious symbol.
It was rotated to the right, with the four traditional dots removed.
Kadgien, who was described as a ‘snake of the lowest sort’ by American interrogators, had funded the Third Reich’s war effort through the theft of art and diamonds from Jewish dealers in the Netherlands.
A senior aide to monstrous Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering during the Second World War, he fled to Switzerland after Germany’s defeat and then moved to Argentina, where he became a successful businessman before his death in 1978.
He was one of hundreds of Nazis who found refuge in South America – in particular in Argentina – after the war.
Among the most notorious were war criminals Adolf Eichmann – the chief architect of the Holocaust – and Auschwitz death camp doctor Josef Mengele.
Kadgien’s daughter’s home, in the city of Mar del Plata, was marketed for sale on the website of estate agent Robles Casas & Campos.
A Dutch journalist investigating the disappearance of Portrait of a Lady spotted the work by painter Fra Galgario in the listing’s photos.
It had pride of place in the family living room.
But when Argentine police stepped into Patricia Kadgien’s house with a warrant in hand, they were met with disappointment.
The painting was no longer there. Instead, a tapestry depicting horses was in its place.
Ms Kadgien was present with her lawyer as police carried out the search.
She has not responded to requests for comment and no charges have been filed.
Officers did seize cell phones and two unregistered firearms as well as drawings, engravings and documents from the 1940s that could advance the investigation
Portrait of a Lady is among at least 800 pieces owned by Dutch Jewish art dealer Jacquest Goudstikker that were seized or bought under duress by the Nazis.
He died in 1940 aged just 42 after falling into the hold of a ship and breaking his neck while fleeing the Nazis for England, where he was buried.
Investigators recovered more than 200 of the pieces in the early 2000s, but many – like Portrait of a Lady – remained missing and are included on the international and Dutch lists of lost art looted by the Nazis.
Before his own unsuccessful escape from Europe, Goudstikker helped fellow Jews flee the Nazis.
Marei von Saher, 81, Goudstikker’s only surviving heir, said last week she now plans to file a claim and launch a legal action to have the painting returned to her family.
‘My search for the artworks owned by my father-in-law Jacques Goudstikker started at the end of the 90s, and I won’t give up,’ von Saher told Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.
‘My family aims to bring back every single artwork robbed from Jacques’s collection and restore his legacy.’
