There has been a surprise in the case of the painting that was looted by Nazis in the Netherlands in the 1940s and recently discovered in Argentina: experts have confirmed the artwork was not actually by 18th-century Italian artist Giuseppe Ghislandi (also known as Fra’ Galgario).

Paolo Plebani, curator of Accademia Carrara in Bergamo — which holds the largest collection of Ghislandi paintings — confirmed to Clarín newspaper that the painting ‘Portrait of a Lady’ is actually the work of another Northern Italian painter, from around the same period, named Giacomo Ceruti — also known as “Il Pitocchetto”.

According to Plebani, who also told Dutch outlet AD that the painting is worth at least 300,000 euros (US$350,000), the painting’s auteurship was determined back in 1927 by art historian Roberto Longhi. Back then, he claimed that the work was actually Ceruti’s, a stance that was later backed in a 1984 paper by art scholar Mina Gregori.

Plebani also reportedly questioned whether the person portrayed in the picture is in fact Countess Colleoni, as specialists have believed all these years. 

Finding the painting

Before World War II, the artwork was owned by Jacques Goudstikker, a Jewish art dealer based in Amsterdam. After being forced to sell his collection to Nazi officials, the painting was last seen in Switzerland in 1946, at the hands of high-ranking Nazi financier Friedrich Kadgien, who fled Germany and ultimately settled in Argentina.

The artwork was discovered in August after Dutch journalist Peter Schouten, who was investigating the fate of the painting, spotted it on a real estate agent’s website in Argentina. The house in question belonged to one of Kadgien’s children, Patricia. 

Authorities raided the house twice but did not find the artwork there. An Argentine court charged Patricia Kadgien with the crime of aggravated cover-up for allegedly trying to hide the painting. Earlier this month, Kagdien finally handed it over to the court after a failed attempt to transfer the judicial investigation to a civil jurisdiction.