How an 18th-century portrait stolen by the Nazis was recovered 80 years later in Argentina

Painting was spotted online by Dutch journalists when the daughter of a former Nazi official put her house up for sale in Mar del Plata

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

Patricia Kadgien, 59, was born in Buenos Aires, five hours to the north. Her social media described her as a yoga teacher and practitioner of biodecoding, an obscure alternative therapy that claims to cure illness by resolving past traumas.