{"id":278437,"date":"2025-08-27T09:44:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T13:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/?p=278437"},"modified":"2025-08-27T09:44:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T13:44:43","slug":"a-painting-stolen-by-nazis-was-spotted-in-a-real-estate-listing-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2025\/08\/27\/a-painting-stolen-by-nazis-was-spotted-in-a-real-estate-listing-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A painting stolen by Nazis was spotted in a real estate listing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From The Guardian<\/a>: “More than 80 years after it was looted by the Nazis from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam, a portrait by an Italian master has been spotted on the website of an estate agent advertising a house for sale in Argentina. A photo shows the painting, Portrait of a Lady (Contessa Colleoni) by the late-baroque portraitist Giuseppe Ghislandi, also known as Fra\u2019 Galgario, <\/strong>hanging above a sofa in the living room of the property, in a seaside town near Buenos Aires. The Dutch newspaper AD said it had traced the work, which features in a database of lost art and is listed by the Dutch culture ministry as \u201cunreturned\u201d after the second world war, after a long investigation \u2013 and with the unwitting help of the estate agent. Portrait of a Lady belonged to Jacques Goudstikker, a leading Dutch art dealer who fled the Netherlands in mid-May 1940 to escape the invading Nazis but died after falling and breaking his neck.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The name of this Mexican peninsula translates as “I don’t understand”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Now I Know<\/a>: “The Yucat\u00e1n Peninsula, circled above, is a peninsula in Mexico, dividing the Gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean Sea. In 1517, conquistador Francisco Hern\u00e1ndez de C\u00f3rdoba launched the first notable expedition to the Yucat\u00e1n, and asked the Mayans where they were. It\u2019s unknown what they actually said, but transliterated, it\u2019s likely one of the following words or phrases: \u201cmathan cauyi ath\u00e1n<\/em>\u201c, \u201ctectec\u00e1n<\/em>\u201c, \u201cma\u2019anaatik ka t\u2019ann<\/em>\u201d or \u201cci u t\u2019ann<\/em>.\u201d Say those aloud and you\u2019ll kind of, sort of hear the word \u201cYucat\u00e1n\u201d in there. And that\u2019s what de C\u00f3rdoba probably heard, so he gave that name to the region.\u201d That\u2019s all fine and good \u2014 if the Mayans were answering de C\u00f3rdoba\u2019s question the way he thought they were, with the name of their country. But they almost certainly weren\u2019t. Those phrases mean, roughly, \u201cI don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note<\/strong>: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can\u00a0see other issues\u00a0and sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

How a shock absorber from a Volkswagen van became the world’s best dog toy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Why Is This Interesting<\/a>: “It\u2019s 1970. A guy named Joe Markham is operating a garage in downtown Denver, which at the time was plagued by burglaries. The local police were unable to provide much in the way of protection except for a bit of advice: Every good junkyard has a dog. Turns out Joe knew of a dog in need of a home who might fit the bill \u2014 a German shepherd named Fritz, who was originally destined to become a K9 officer with the Denver Police Department, except for one problem \u2014 Fritz could not stop chewing. Fritz would chew anything \u2014 dog bones, radiator hoses, even rocks. The last one got Joe worried, as Fritz\u2019s obsessive rock chewing was wearing down his teeth. Then one day, as the legend goes, Joe was tearing down the suspension of a customer\u2019s late 60\u2019s VW Type 2 Bus when he heard Fritz going crazy: The dog was chewing on a bulbous rubber axle stop that had been laid aside during the repair.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either <\/em>through my Patreon<\/em><\/a> or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called <\/em>The Torment Nexus<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Danish post office says it will no longer deliver physical letters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Business Day<\/a>: “Denmark is ending delivery of physical letters after a steep decline in letter volumes driven largely by digitalisation. PostNord Denmark\u2019s postal service has announced that it will cease letter services at the end of the year. It will bring to an end four centuries of letter deliveries by the state-owned operation. A third of its workforce is being let go, as it sheds 2,200 positions in its loss-making letter arm. Instead, it will focus on its parcel business, creating 700 new roles. \u201cDanes hardly receive any letters anymore. It\u2019s been going down for years and years,\u201d says Kim Pedersen, chief of PostNord Denmark. \u201cThey\u2019re receiving one letter a month on average, it\u2019s not a lot.\u201d Since 2000, the volume of letters the business handles has declined by more than 90%, from around 1.4 billion to 110 million last year, and it continues to fall rapidly.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People have been getting together to throw tomatoes at each other for 80 years in Spain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From AP<\/a>: “Thousands of people will paint a town red with tomato pulp Wednesday, flinging the fruit at one another in the 80th anniversary of Spain\u2019s famous Tomatina tomato street fight. The hourlong event brings 120 tons of overripe tomatoes to the eastern town of Bu\u00f1ol, where tarp-covered buildings flank a crowd of up to 22,000 participants awaiting their ammo. Non-local attendees pay 15 euros ($17.50) for a ticket and arrive from countries across the globe or cities a bus ride away. Held on the last Wednesday of August, the event was inspired by a food fight between local children who pelted each other with tomatoes in 1945. After becoming a yearly tradition, \u201cTomatina\u201d was briefly banned in the 1950s by dictator Francisco Franco, a decision locals protested. Televised media attention in the 1980s turned the festival into a national event, eventually drawing an international crowd.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily this fin heading straight for the kids swimming is the good kind<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Acknowledgements<\/strong><\/em>: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other newsletters that I rely on as “serendipity engines,” such as <\/em>The Morning News<\/em><\/a> from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg’s <\/em>Curious About Everything<\/em><\/a>, Dan Lewis’s <\/em>Now I Know<\/em><\/a>, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton’s <\/em>The Browser<\/em><\/a>, Clive Thompson’s <\/em>Linkfest<\/em><\/a>, Noah Brier and Colin Nagy’s <\/em>Why Is This Interesting<\/em><\/a>, Maria Popova’s <\/em>The Marginalian<\/em><\/a>, Sheehan Quirke AKA <\/em>The Cultural Tutor<\/em><\/a>, the <\/em>Smithsonian<\/em><\/a> magazine, and <\/em>JSTOR Daily<\/em><\/a>. If you come across something interesting that you think should be included here, please feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com<\/em><\/p>\n

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From The Guardian: “More than 80 years after it was looted by the Nazis from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam, a portrait by an Italian master has been spotted on the website of an estate agent advertising a house for sale in Argentina. A photo shows the painting, Portrait of a Lady (Contessa Colleoni) by … <\/p>\n

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