An Argentine federal court announced Wednesday that authorities had recovered the long-lost “Portrait of a Lady,” an 18th-century work by the Italian painter Giuseppe Ghislandi that the Nazis looted in World War II.

Before the court presentation Wednesday in the Argentine coastal city of Mar del Plata, the painting had not been seen in person for 80 years.

The first-ever color photo of it, however, surfaced last month in an online real estate listing unwittingly posted by one of the daughters of Friedrich Kadgien, the fugitive Nazi officer who stole the painting from a Dutch-Jewish art dealer in the occupied Netherlands.

Dutch journalists made that shocking discovery while investigating Kadgien's past in Argentina, where the high-ranking official fled after the collapse of the Third Reich and later died in 1978.

News of the find thrilled historians the world over and eventually reached the heirs of its original owner, art collector Jacques Goudstikker. His descendants have sought to recover hundreds of paintings stolen by the Nazis during the forced sale of his inventory.

But the reappearance of “Portrait of a Lady” was fleeting. Within hours of the story’s publication in Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad last week, the real estate listing was taken down. Police raided the rustic Mar del Plata home of Patricia Kadgien, the Nazi officer’s daughter, but the painting wasn’t there.

The public prosecutor’s office ordered the detention of Kadgien and her husband pending a hearing on charges of concealment and obstruction of justice. Police on Monday conducted a series of other raids on homes belonging to the Kadgien sisters in Mar del Plata, seizing various paintings and engravings that may have also been stolen.

On Wednesday, the federal court in Mar del Plata held a press conference to announce that the couple had handed over Ghislandi’s famous painting.

Art expert Ariel Bassano, who assisted with the investigation, told reporters from the courtroom that the painting was in good condition and dates back to 1710.

It’s not clear exactly how the painting came into the possession of Kadgien, who worked as a financial advisor to Adolf Hitler’s right-hand man, Hermann Göring.

AP Video by Bruno Verdenelli and Bernardo Boucho