Nazi-Stolen Painting Found in Home of Dutch SS Collaborator's Descendants

A painting stolen from a Jewish art collector by the Nazis during World War Two has surfaced in the home of descendants of a notorious Dutch SS collaborator, according to art detective Arthur Brand.

Portrait of a Young Girl, by Dutch artist Toon Kelder, had hung for decades in the family home of Hendrik Seyffardt, Brand said.

The work once belonged to Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, who died while fleeing the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. He left behind a collection of more than 1,000 paintings.

A man who identified himself as a Seyffardt descendant brought the case to Brand. He said he felt "disgusted" to learn his family had kept the artwork for years.

Seyffardt, a Dutch general, commanded a Waffen-SS unit of volunteers on the eastern front. Resistance fighters assassinated him in 1943.

Soon after discovering his link to the Nazi collaborator, the man asked his grandmother about the painting's history. She told him it had been purchased during World War Two and called it "Jewish looted art, stolen from Goudstikker. It is unsellable. Don't tell anyone."

The family, which changed its name at the war's end, admitted possessing the painting but denied knowing its origin, according to a statement to Dutch media.

The family member contacted Brand through an intermediary, saying the painting could return to Goudstikker's heirs only if the story went public. He told De Telegraaf: "I feel ashamed. The painting should be returned to the heirs of Goudstikker."

His grandmother said in a statement to the paper: "I received it from my mother. Now that you confront me like this, I understand that Goudstikker's heirs want the painting back. I didn't know that."

Brand launched an investigation after learning of the painting. He found a label on the back and the number 92 etched into its frame.

He checked archives of a 1940 auction where much of Goudstikker's looted collection sold. An item numbered 92 was listed as "Portrait of a Young Girl" by Toon Kelder.

Brand believes Hermann Goering plundered the painting when Goudstikker fled for Britain in 1940. It sold at auction to Seyffardt and passed down to his descendants, Brand said.

Brand notified lawyers for Goudstikker's heirs. They confirmed the collector once owned six paintings by Kelder, all included in the 1940 auction.

Brand called the discovery "stunning" and "the most bizarre case of my entire career" in an interview with the BBC.

"I have recovered Nazi-looted art from World War Two before, including pieces in the Louvre, the Dutch Royal Collection, and numerous museums," he said. "But discovering a painting from the famous Goudstikker collection, in the possession of the heirs of a notorious and famous Dutch Waffen-SS general, truly tops everything."

He added: "For decades, the family, who of course bear no personal guilt for Seyffardt's own crimes, had the opportunity to do the right thing and return this painting. They chose not to."

The case echoes a prior incident where an Italian masterwork stolen from Goudstikker's collection by the Nazis appeared on an Argentine estate agent's website. The painting, a portrait of a Lady by Giuseppe Ghislandi, hung above a sofa in a Buenos Aires-area property once owned by a senior Nazi who fled to South America after the war.