South America is flush with Nazi-looted art
This summer, a niche story from the art world caught fire: an Old Master painting, stolen by the Nazis from a Dutch-Jewish art dealer, surfaced in Mar del Plata, Argentina. Remarkably, journalists from a Dutch newspaper spotted it on the wall of a house in a promotional photo that was part of a “for sale” real-estate listing. It turned out that one of the sellers of the house was the daughter of a Nazi official who worked for Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, a notorious art plunderer. When the stolen painting was recognized, the daughter allegedly removed it from the wall, replacing it with another artwork – a tapestry. Argentine authorities then arrested her and her husband and charged them with concealing a crime.
