Nazi looting How house sale led to discovery of painting

There was nothing very remarkable about the middle-aged couple who lived in the low, stone-clad villa on Calle Padre Cardiel, a quiet street in the leafy Parque Luro district of Argentina's best-known seaside town, Mar del Plata.

- Facundo Iglesia Mar del Plata Jon Henley

Patricia Kadgien, 58, was born in Buenos Aires, five hours to the north. Her social media profile described her as a yoga teacher and practitioner of biodecoding, an obscure alternative therapy that claims to cure illness by resolving past traumas.

Her husband, Juan Carlos Cortegoso, 61, built and raced go-karts. Like many in this neighbourhood, the couple were comfortably off and discreet. "Patri" was "an excellent person", one neighbour said. "Nice, well educated," said another.

Then, last month, they put their house up for sale. A photographer, Robles Casas y Campos, came round to shoot the spacious, elegantly furnished interiors for an estate agent. The pictures went up. And the couple's quiet existence came crashing down.

The fifth photograph on the agency's listing showed a general view of the living room. Hanging on the wall, above a buttoned sofa in plush green velvet and next to an antique commode, was a highly distinctive oil painting of a woman.

Almost 7,000 miles away, the Dutch news outlet AD had for several years been quietly investigating the fate of old master paintings looted by the Nazis and still listed by the country's culture ministry as "unreturned" after the second world war.