The drama surrounding a Nazi-looted painting found in an Argentine home in August continued last week as an expert cast doubt on the work’s attribution.
In the press, the painting was widely attributed to Giuseppe Ghislandi, a painter associated with 18th-century Italy. But, speaking to the Argentine newspaper ClarÃn, one curator who studied Ghislandi’s oeuvre said the work may be by someone else altogether.
ClarÃn interviewed Paolo Plebani, curator of the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Italy, which reportedly has a larger collection of Ghislandi paintings than any other institution in the world. Per Plebani, the painting is actually by Giacomo Ceruti, who also hailed from Northern Italy.
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If Plebani is correct, the new attribution adds another knot in a case that has already taken many twists and turns. News of the painting was first made public by the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad, which began reporting on it after the work was spotted in a real estate listing for a home in Mar del Plata. When a reported from that publication tried to see the work in person, it already appeared to have been secreted away.
The painting attributed to Ghislandi appeared on a registry of lost artworks and was once owned by Jacques Goudstikker, a Jewish art dealer who fled the Netherlands amid the rise of the Nazis. Friedrich Kadgien, a former Nazi who died in Argentina in 1978, is thought to have taken possession of the work.
The Mar del Plata home belonged to his daughters, Patricia and Alicia. Patricia and her husband, Juan Carlos Cortegoso, were subsequently placed under house arrest for 72 hours, and the painting was later recovered.
According to Diario La Capital de Mar del Plata, Argentine authorities are still assessing what to do with the work. The publication reported that Goudstikker’s heirs are seeking the return of the painting through the New York court system. Argentine officials, meanwhile, have exhibited the work to the press and are planning to stow it for now at the Holocaust Museum in Buenos Aires.