Blog Subscription via Follow.it

Showing posts with label Netherlands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Netherlands. Show all posts

August 27, 2025

Wednesday, August 27, 2025 - ,,,,,,,,,, No comments

Swastikas, SOCMINT and Stolen Masterpieces: Inside the Hunt for Goudstikker’s Lost Art in Argentina

On Monday, the internet lit up after Algemeen Dagblad published an explosive investigation by Peter Schouten, John van den Oetelaar, and Cyril Rosman, revealing the identification of two World War II-era paintings linked to the family of Friedrich Gustav Kadgien, sparking renewed attention to Nazi-looted art hidden abroad.  Kadgien, a Nazi SS officer, served as Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring’s liaison with Swiss banks in his work connected with Germany's Vierjahresplan before splitting for Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay as Germany lost the war.

Friedrich Kadgien's visa for Uruguay.

Building on this revelation, ARCA released its own article yesterday, outlining some of our parallel research into the tragic losses of Amsterdam dealer Jacques Goudstikker, as well as tracing a brief outline of Kadgien’s movements before and after his escape to South America.  As the case remained a developing one, we discussed only the general outlines of our own OSINT and SOCMINT explorations,  in order to give Kadgien's relatives time to respond. 

Today, journalists Schouten and Rosman reported that federal prosecutor Carlos Martínez has opened a case of concealment of smuggling, in cooperation with INTERPOL and the Policía Federal Argentina. As a result of this investigation law enforcement officers from Mar del Plata's Special Investigations Unit executed a search warrant, authorised by the Mar del Plata Court of Guarantees No. 2, which was carried out at a home in Mar del Plata in search of the 17th century painting Portrait of a Lady by Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi, looted during World War II.  Kadgien 's youngest daughter, accompanied by her husband and lawyer, were present during the search.

During the police raid, investigators discovered that the family had removed the artwork, leaving its current whereabouts unknown.  Where it had hung on the wall, a tapestry with a horse had been hung.  Despite this, more than 25 prints from German and French collections from the 1940s were seized, along with relevant documentation, two cell phones, a revolver, and a shotgun.

This painting, by Italian artist Giuseppe Ghislandi, was stolen from Jacques Goudstikker's collection when the Jewish Dutch art dealer fled the Netherlands as it was invaded by Nazi Germany

This case got underway after the artwork depicting Cecilia Colleoni had been discovered in a photograph uploaded for a Robles Casas & Campos real estate advertisement.  The image depicted the 17th century countess behind a green couch next to a wooden and glass tile coffee table, which unfortunately, by mistake or design, forms the shape of a swastika, an ancient religious symbol, adopted by Adolf Hitler to represent the German Reich

The Nazi used the right facing form of a swastika at an angle of 45 degrees
with the corners pointing upwards.

Shortly after the news broke in Europe this week, Robles Casas & Campos removed the photos and changed the Mar del Plata housing listing to another property in barrio Parque Luro located 5 km away. Reviewing documents for Argentine companies listed as Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada ARCA found that the original Buenos Aires home, located at Padre Cardiel 4152, Mar del Plata, was owned, and/or occupied, by Kadgien's younger daughter, Patricia Mónica Kadgien and her partner Juan Carlos Cortegoso.  

As the story gained steam within the international press, Patricia Kadgien, who had already stopped communicating with the Dutch journalists, switched all of her social media channels private, as did other relatives and former employees of the family.  As an added precaution, Kadgien, also changed her online name from Patricia Kadgien to Monica Cortegoso.  

But before these changes were made, ARCA had already captured a series of photos posted by the former SS officer's daughter, which were of two additional artworks. 

One was described by the Dutch journalists as a still life painting depicting a crowded display of peaches and other fruit, a bird's nest, insects and a lizard.  This oil painting is believed to have been completed by the German artist Abraham Mignon (1640–1679), and was also being searched for as a World War II era loss by the Dutch Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed. 

ARCA captured a grouping of images of this artwork posted on Kadgien's socials in 2011, which showed what is believed to be the Mignon painting displayed behind three individuals.  While the wall-mounted light illuminating the painting from above causes the artwork to be out of focus, we could clearly see three peaches poking through. 

Still life painting by Abraham Mignon which was known to have been purchased by Friedrich Gustav Kadgien, a lawyer responsible for foreign currency procurement through Swiss front companies for the Vierjahresplan.

While the visibility of the painting published in that social media post was quite limited, the three pieces of visible fruit depicted in the social media uploaded photo are consistent with the three peaches in the black and white image of Mignon's artwork recorded in the Netherlands online ‘Cultural Goods WWII’ portal.  This can be seen with our rudimentary overlay below. This painting was also not found during this initial police search warrant.


In other explorations, ARCA captured another blurry photograph, this time of a religious artwork posted by Patricia Kadgien hanging above two twin beds inside a second residence located near the Costa Esmeralda - Barrio Deportiva some distance from Buenos Aires.  While the photograph of this third artwork was taken from a distance, and was not in perfect focus, it clearly showed a religious scene of the Blessed Mother and Christ child hung on a wall above the headboards of two twin beds.

Discovered 3rd painting in a rental residence advertised by Kadgien's daughter.  

This artwork corresponds to the iconography of several paintings titled La Vierge aux raisins (The Virgin with the grapes) attributed to, or executed in the style of, Pierre Mignard.  This allegorical composition depicts Mary seated in a darkened room at twilight with her infant son on her lap and holding a cluster of grapes in her right hand.  

The painting's imagery is understood to be a foreshadowing of the Virgin's role at the Wedding Feast at Cana, as well as the sacrifice of the Cross. In this scene, the artist painted the Christ Child delicately lifts his mother's veil, an action which has been interpreted as a prefiguration of his unveiling of the path to mankind's salvation.

Paintings of this type are sometimes referred to as "Mignardes," after their original author, and were intended for private devotion.  One of Mignard's original oil paintings illustrating this subject is housed in the Musée du Louvre.  Unfortunately, there are multiple versions of this artwork, by the original artist, his peers, and by later copyists, so for now at least, it remains unclear whether or not the work can be traced to a specific  World War II-era loss.


By late Monday, 25 August 2025, as was the case with the digitally available photo of Ghislandi's Portrait of the Countess, someone acting in the family's interests, scrubbed the suspect photo displaying the Madonna with Child painting from the internet.  However other images depicting the interior and exterior of this second residence, uploaded in different years, demonstrated that the property was still under Patricia Kadgien's control, at least in the year 2023. 


Two of the original images ARCA captured from a 2019 posting before the take-downs occurred, showed the exterior of this property.  One of these corresponds to a newer December 2023 photo uploaded by Kadgien's daughter which depicts the same house, showing a portion of the same veranda and the same white table. 


This third artwork can also be seen in this local Ahora Mar del Plata news site photo, showing that it was seized along with other suspect works when the search warrant was executed.  This painting and these other works on paper, will now need to be sifted through, though we can already see that some of the prints appear to be part of the Henri Matisse. Seize peintures 1939-1943, a First Edition set of 16 Prints
Published by Les Editions du Chene in Paris in 1943. 


For now, the Portrait of a Lady by Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi has not been recovered.  Nor, it seems, has the other high value still life by Abraham Mignon.  One has to hope that Patricia, her husband, her sister Alicia Maria Kadgien or other members of the family, will cooperate more with police and prosecutors than they did with the journalists covering this evolving and long time coming story. 


By Lynda Albertson and Alice Bientinesi


August 25, 2025

Monday, August 25, 2025 - ,,,,, No comments

Diamonds and Dispossessed Art: The Friedrich Gustav Kadgien connection to the Goudstikker collection

"Portrait of a Woman" from the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed website.
. 
As readers of this blog know, Jacques Goudstikker was once considered to be the preeminent dealer of Old Master paintings in Amsterdam and is estimated to have amassed an extraordinary collection of some 1400 works of art over the course of his professional career.  When Germany began its assault on Holland on May 10, 1940, the Jewish dealer was acutely aware of the imminent threat to his family’s safety and livelihood.

With Rotterdam burning and as the Nazi invasion under Reichsmarschall Göring gaining speed, Goudstikker, took his young wife Désirée von Halban Kurtz, and their infant son Edouard, to IJmuiden in North Holland, where the family boarded the SS Bodegraven, a ship docked at the port city departing for England. 

Goudstikker inventory of property

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.

But today's story is not about the Cranachs, but about a painting by Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi, (better known as Fra’ Galgario), an Italian painter from the early 1700s. 

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.

 The motor vessel "Anna C" docked in Genoa for Buenos Aires 

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.

A house and private plane on Kadgien's 82,000 hectare fazenda.

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.

© Robles Casas & Campos

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. 

A 1996 Swiss Independent Commission of Experts investigating Switzerland’s role in the Nazi period noted SS Friedrich Kadgien as a lawyer at the Nazi Public Economy Department during the Second World War. According to that report, "Kadgien had been heavily involved in criminal methods for acquiring currency, securities and diamonds stolen from Jewish victims playing a major role."

Jacques Goudstikker's heirs have stated that they will seek the return of the Countess painting.  Time will tell with the other two. 


By:  Lynda Albertson

May 3, 2022

Tuesday, May 03, 2022 - ,,,,,, No comments

Justice rendered in the attempted theft of Claude Monet's De Voorzaan en de Westerhem from the Zaans Museum


Forty-nine year old, repeat art napper, Henk Bieslijn has been sentenced to four years in prison in the Netherlands for the broad daylight failed theft of Oscar-Claude Monet's De Voorzaan en de Westerhem from the Zaans Museum in Zaandam.

Here is a timeline of how the events in that case developed. 

16 August 2021 - An attempted theft, occurs at around half-past ten at the Zaans Museum in Zaandam, Netherlands 

During the incident, one culprit, later determined to be Henk Bieslijn walked into the Zaans Museum during opening hours wearing a wig as a disguise.  After nonchalantly grabbing Claude Monet's De Voorzaan en de Westerhem, the law-breaking art aficionado exited the museum, only to be spotted by a bystander, who attempted to impede the thief's progress by grabbing hold of him.   

In the ensuing confusion, three shots were fired and the pilfering art thief dropped the Monet but successfully mounted the back of a black motorbike driven by the accomplice. 

Thankfully, no one is injured, and the artwork by the famous French impressionist was quickly returned to the museum. Albeit, slightly worse for the wear.   A short while later, law enforcement authorities recovered the get-away vehicle after it had been abandoned by Bieslijn and his accomplice on the Zuiderweg in nearby Wijdewormer. 

21 August 2021 - A former art burgler walked into a police station
Dutch newspapers announce that a man named "Henk B." reported to be one of two thieves involved in the Zaans Museum failed heist, had walked himself into the Noord-Holland police to answer questions regarding the attempted theft of the Claude Monet painting.  

It is almost immediately clear that this individual is Henk Bieslijn, who on 7 December 2002, was involved in the nighttime burglary of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. In that incident, two works of art, Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen and View of the Sea at Scheveningen by Vincent Van Gogh we stolen, and remained missing, in the hands of organised crime actors, until 2016.

January 2022
A second suspect in the Zaans Museum attempted theft, this one, a thirty-seven year old unnamed man from Purmerend, is taken into custody.  He is subsequently released after questioning.

19 April 2022 - Bieslijn confesses
Appearing before the Dutch court in Alkmaar, Henk Bieslijn admits to the court that he attempted to steal Claude Monet's De Voorzaan en de Westerhem from the Zaans Museum, purportedly under pressure from criminals.  Bieslijn, claimed that after serving his time for the 2002 Van Gogh Museum burglary, he had left behind his former life of crime and until recently had been working at festivals until the COVID pandemic resulted in him being underemployed.

To fill the gaps, Bieslijn stated that he had decided to begin selling marijuana, and claimed he had picked up a substantial quantity of cannabis for resale, passing it off to another individual in the front of a cafe, while he, in turn, walked out the back. Bueslijn then claimed that this person disappeared, which resulted in him being left with a debt of some €12,000 euros to the organisation he bought drugs from. 

Bieslijn also told the court that after the 2002 Van Gogh theft, he had been approached by criminals on more than one occasion, each time, as they purportedly looked for someone to conduct a similar heist.  During each of these prior incidents, the purportedly reluctant art thief claimed he turned the criminals down.   That is until 2021, when he was persuaded otherwise, with what he perceived to be threats towards his son. 

Bieslijn told the Dutch Court that on Saturday evening, 14 August 202, his telephone rang and he was ordered, not asked, to steal the Monet at the Zaans Museum in Zaandam, with the assistance of an accomplice.  The art thief stated he never thought the daylight theft would be successful, but had agreed to participate in hopes of showing that he was willing to cooperate, and in doing so, ensure the protection of his son. 

Bieslijn denied having fired a weapon on the day of the attempted robbery but  admitted that the pair had first escaped on the getaway scooter later found abandoned on the Zuiderweg.  The accomplices then took a car in the direction of Purmerend, where at some point on their journey, Bieslijn got out of the car at a bus stop and took a bus back to the city of Amsterdam.

Not believing Bieslijn's testimony as stated, and given his prior involvement in the Van Gogh Museum thefts, the Prosecutor asked that he be sentenced to four years in prison.  IN making this recommendation, the prosecutor noted that at no point had the former art thief come forward to report any of the purported earlier incidences of coercion or intimidation and had also failed to go to the authorities on the day if the Zaans Museum theft, even after shots had been fired. 

3 May 2022 - The court hands down its sentence.  
Citing the "particularly brutal theft in broad daylight" the Judge in Henk Bieslijn's case granted the public prosecutor's request and sentenced the two-time art thief to four years in jail.  In issuing their ruling the court concluded that the theft of the Monet painting was completed, not merely attempted, as at the time of the incident, the artwork had been taken from its mount inside the museum and carried outside.  The judge further stated that the court wouldn't take Bieslijn's purported criminal debt, or possible criminal coercion into consideration, as the incident involving the lost bag of weed could not be verified, nor did it diminish the seriousness of the crime.  

The sentence of four years is similar to the one Bieslijn received on 26 July 2004, along with his coconspirator Octave Durham, for their roles in the museum burglary which nabbed Vincent Van Gogh's Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen and View of the Sea at Scheveningen.   One hopes that this time it may serve as a deterrent. 

September 22, 2021

Wednesday, September 22, 2021 - ,,,,,, No comments

How many bags of cocaine could a Monet buy?


Back this summer shots were fired by one of two suspects fleeing the scene of an attempted theft of Claude Monet's painting De Voorzaan en de Westerhem at the Zaans Museum in the Netherlands.   Yesterday, in an unexpected turn of events, one of the two suspects turned himself over to the Noord-Holland police.

More surprising still, this suspect, listed as Henk B in Dutch news services, appears to be Henk Bieslijn, the Dutch national who was previously sentenced on 26 July 2004 to four years in jail, along with his coconspirator Octave Durham, for their roles in an earlier museum burglary which nabbed Vincent Van Gogh's Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen and View of the Sea at Scheveningen. 

While both culprits were convicted and served out their prison sentences, the two Van Gogh's, stolen from the Van Gogh Museum on 7 December  2002 remained in the hands of the Italian underworld.  Both paintings were eventually recovered in 2016 in Castellammare di Stabia, in the Bay of Naples, where they had been stored by their purchaser, Raffaele Imperiale.  Imperiale is the Camorra affiliated crime boss of the international drug trafficking Amato-Pagano clan who was arrested in August in Dubai and is awaiting extradition.

Imperiale is alleged to have given up the Van Gogh paintings to the Italian authorities in exchange for a lower prison sentence.  Given Henk B's connections to organised crime, it seems reasonable to speculate that had this attempted theft of the Monet been successful, the French artist's painting too would likely have been brokered to members of the underworld. 

For now, it remains to be seen what Henk Bieslijn knows, what his motives were and if he will cooperate with the Dutch police.


August 15, 2021

Sunday, August 15, 2021 - ,,, No comments

Monet (almost) stolen and shots fired at the Zaans Museum in Zaandam, Netherlands.


_____________________________________________
Update: 16 August 2021:  14:00 CEST

The Zaans Museum has confirmed that the artwork targeted by thieves was 'De Voorzaan en de Westerhem, painted by Monet and is currently off display while it is being examined for damages.
_____________________________________________

Shots were fired by suspects fleeing on a stolen black motorcycle or scooter during an attempted theft of a Monet painting this morning at the Zaans Museum in Zaandam, Netherlands. 

During the incident, which occurred at around half-past ten, one culprit attempted to flee the museum carrying the painting from inside the museum.  Upon exiting with the artwork, a bystander attempted to halt the thief's progress by pulling on the robber as he mounted the back of a black motorbike being driven by an accomplice.  During the incident, shots were apparently fired but no one appears to have been injured.  Equally lucky, during the scuffle, the thief released the painting in order to quickly flee the scene. 

While the police have not yet arrested any suspects, their black get-away vehicle was found abandoned on the Zuiderweg in nearby Wijdewormer and will be examined for clues. 

De Voorzaan en de Westerhem, 1871 by Claude Monet 

In 2015 the Zaans Museum purchased 'De Voorzaan en de Westerhem, painted by Monet during the Franco-Prussian War. Monet arrived in Zaandam with his wife Camille Doncieux and their young son, Jean in June 1871 after having stayed in London for almost a year.   Once there he spent four months in Zaandam with his wife and child in 1871 and painting some 25 known paintings, as well as 6 sketches, mostly of the region's scenery and windmills, as well as boats sailing on the Zaan river.  

At the time of 'De Voorzaan en de Westerhem's purchase, the painting, was considered to be the most expensive artwork ever purchased by the Zaans, and was made possible with funds from Vereniging Rembrandt (thanks in part to its BankGiro Loterij Aankoopfonds and its Claude Monet Fund), the Municipality of Zaanstad, the Honig-Laan Fund, Dr. MJ van Toorn and L. Scholten Foundation,  Ir. PM Duyvisfonds, VSBfonds, Koninklijke Ahold, Jacob Heijn Holding BV, BredeNHofstichting, Rabobank Zaanstreek and Monet Foundation in Zaandam.

Only the third museum in the Netherlands to have a Monet produced in Zaandam in its collection. The others are in the Van Gogh Museum and at the Kröller-Müller.  For now, no information has been released by the museum, confirming if the Zanns' Monet was the target and whether the artwork removed from the museum suffered damage during its less than gentle handling by the would-be thieves. 


Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)