Unable to transport his gallery's paintings with him, Goudstikker carried a neatly typed inventory of his property in a black leather notebook.  This notebook detailed artworks by important Dutch and Flemish artists like Jan Mostaert and Jan Steen, as well as works by Peter Paul Rubens, Giotto, Pasqualino Veneziano, Titian, Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh, and the Cranachs.  Unfortunately, in a further tragic twist of fate, Goudstikker lost his life on his journey to safety, breaking his neck in an accidental fall through an uncovered hatch just two days into the ship's voyage.

In less than a week after the German Luftwaffe of the Third Reich crossed into Dutch airspace, Dutch commanding general General Henry G. Winkelman surrendered and the country fell under German occupation.  As a result, Amsterdam came under a civilian administration overseen by the Reichskommissariat Niederlande, which was dominated by the Schutzstaffel.  

Goudstikker's collection was quickly liquidated, taken under circumstances of vulnerability and displacement typical of many World War II -era art thefts.  Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring himself cherry picked many of the choicest gems, including two 6-1/4 foot (1.9 meters) tall panels of Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder, which would become the subject of a protracted and painful multi-million dollar lawsuit with the Norton Simon Museum in California.

In the aftermath of World War II, the Goudstikker family sought to rebuild their life and secure what remained of their assets with several works becoming part of broader restitution claims. This painting, titled simply Portrait of a Lady was one of the works seized by the Nazis from Jacques Goudstikker's art gallery in Amsterdam and was last traced to Friedrich Gustav Kadgien, a lawyer responsible for foreign currency procurement through Swiss front companies, and who acted as  Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring's liaison with Swiss banks for the Vierjahresplan.  

Brazilian identity card for "Federico Gustavo" Kadgien

As the Allies crossed the Rhine, in the east and the Red Army advanced on Berlin Kadgien, a member of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (since 1 November 1932) and the SS since 1935, was responsible for Germany's war economy.  But despite his high ranking position, he fled to Switzerland, crossing the German-Swiss border near Kreuzlingen just days before Germany's official surrender.  There he lived, for several years, for the most part sheltered and under the radar.  Germany lost the war, and the former SS officer began using his contacts with Swiss businessmen and banks for his own purposes.  

Much later, the Bergier commission will identify him as being connected to the newly renamed firm Imhauka Handels- und Finanzierungs-gesellschaft AG, a finance and trading firm formed with Ernst Imfeld and Ludwig Haupt, hence the letters IM-HAU-KA, that had branches in Tangier, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro. This firm is believed to have made it possible for the Germans to move money, fuel, diamonds, and apparently art, out of Europe.

Interrogated by the American authorities in Bern, in 1948, who wanted him extradited back to Germany, Kadgien skipped town to Latin America.  To do so he  hopped the passenger ship, "Anna C" (1948 - 1971) docked in the port of Genoa and headed to Buenos Aires.  Once in that South American country, he settled, found himself a younger wife, bred and rode horses, and founded Imhauka Argentina, with branches in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, as well as the Companhia Brasileira de Caldeiras.  

Little is known about his company's activities but Kadgien's wealth was enormous, sufficient in fact to allow him and Ludwig Haupt to acquire an 82,000 hectare fazenda, a parcel of land roughly the size of the city of Berlin, on a curve of the Taquari-Guaçu river.  Some speculate that the German bon vivant's wealth came from laundering the German war chest and that he financed coups in Colombia (1953) and Guatemala (1954), using the proceeds from confiscated diamonds taken from their owners in Antwerp during the war.

In Argentina his network of companies functioned perfectly even after the war and not long after he was granted Argentine citizenship, which conveniently protected him from being extradited to Germany.  He died in Buenos Aires in 1978 at the age of seventy one, without ever being held accountable for any of his crimes.

Today in an article published by Algemeen Dagblad and written collaboratively by Peter Schouten, John van den Oetelaar and Cyril Rosman, it became publicly known that at least one stolen World War II-era painting from Jacques Goudstikker's collection apparently made its way with Kadgien to Argentina.

The painting depicting the Countess Cecilia Colleoni by Ghislandi was identified when one of the former SS Officer's two daughters listed her house in Mar del Plata, south of Buenos Aires, with the Robles Casas & Campos real estate firm.  There, above a well-won green couch was the painting of a woman in a light coloured dress, laced at the front with half sleeves.  Examining the photograph, experts Annelies Kool and Perry Schrier of the Dutch Heritage Agency state: "There is no reason to believe it could be a copy." According to them, "The dimensions also appear to match the information we have. Definitive confirmation can be obtained by examining the back of the painting" noting that the verso may still retain markings or labels confirming its provenance.

Official documents on the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed website and cited in the Dutch article reveal that Kadgien also owned (at least) two paintings from Amsterdam in 1946 which were at one point with the Jewish art dealer Goudstikker.  The second artwork is a still life painting with fruit by the German artist Abraham Mignon (1640–1679) described in this document. 

Like the Dutch journalists, ARCA was able to find photographs identifying this still life painting linking the artwork to Kadgien's living family members, via OSINT methods.  I was also able to discover a third painting, which may be a match to a painting by one of the most important portrait painters of the French Baroque.  That artwork was stolen from a museum in Germany at the end of the war.  If this third identification is also a match, that would bring the number of suspect paintings tied to this Second World War actor to at least three.