The daughter and son-in-law of a Nazi financier who helped plunder Europe’s Jewish-owned art collections during World War II were charged Thursday in Argentina with concealing dozens of stolen works, including 22 paintings by French modernist Henri Matisse.

The case erupted last month after “Portrait of a Lady,” an 18th-century painting by Italian baroque artist Giuseppe Ghislandi, surfaced in a real estate advertisement for a property in Argentina — only to disappear shortly after. The work had been missing for eight decades.

Investigators later traced the painting to the home of Patricia Kadgien, 58, daughter of Nazi official Friedrich Kadgien, who fled to Argentina after the war and died there in 1978. Police raids in the seaside city of Mar del Plata uncovered the missing Ghislandi and a trove of additional works, including 22 canvases from Matisse’s 1940s period. The origins of other seized paintings are still under review.

Friedrich Kadgien, once a financial adviser to Adolf Hitler, played a role in transporting art stolen from Jewish families and collectors to South America during the war. Among the victims was Dutch dealer Jacques Goudstikker, who died in 1940 while fleeing the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands.

His “Portrait of a Lady” was among hundreds of pieces stripped from his collection, much of it divided up by senior Nazi leaders, including Gestapo founder Hermann Goering. Although more than 300 works were later retrieved by the Dutch state and returned to Goudstikker’s heirs, many remain unaccounted for worldwide.

The rediscovered Ghislandi, believed to be worth about $50,000 today, is the latest reminder of how Nazi-looted art continues to resurface more than 80 years after the Holocaust.

Kadgien’s daughter Patricia and her 60-year-old husband surrendered the Ghislandi painting to authorities and were formally charged with “concealment” during a court appearance Thursday. Prosecutors say the couple knowingly hid the art for decades, only to be exposed by the chance appearance of the Ghislandi work in a property listing.

Images of the painting were displayed this week at the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Mar del Plata, where Argentine visual arts teacher Ariel Bassano identified it as the long-lost baroque portrait first documented in Dutch newspaper AD.

The case highlights Argentina’s dark role as a haven for fleeing Nazis after World War II. Thousands of Nazi officials and collaborators crossed the Atlantic to South America, where many — like Kadgien — built quiet lives shielded from prosecution. Chile and Argentina in particular became notorious for sheltering fugitives tied to Hitler’s regime.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)