The February 1997 theft of Portrait of a Lady by the Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt stirred the art world: the canvas mysteriously disappeared from the Ricci-Oddi Gallery of Modern Art in Piacenza, Italy two months before it was to headline an exhibition there. The culprits had stolen the painting through a glass roof window, on which only the frame had been found. Painted in 1916-17, the portrait was one of the centrepieces of the museum's collection and estimated at €60 million (£50.9 mil).
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On 11 December 2019, over 22 years later, a gardener discovered a black bag in an alcove that had been covered with a thick layer of ivy. Inside was a painting identical to the stolen portrait. The work is now in the possession of the police and experts have been called upon to analyse and authenticate the canvas.
Robert Riccardi, chief of the police force, said that the painting's current location does not exclude the "possibility that the painting did not remain there during all this time." Massimo Ferrari, the director of the museum, is rather confident about the authenticity of the canvas: he recognised the labels on the back of the work, affixed while the painting was on loan.
"Of course, the painting must be examined by experts to verify its authenticity," said Laura Bonfanti, Vice President of Ricci-Oddi Gallery, "But at first glance, based on the wax seals and the labels that we saw on the back of the canvas, it seems to be the original."
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The thieves removed the work from its frame and left the frame on the roof, but some say that the opening was too narrow to let the canvas pass, and it was only an attempt to blur their tracks. Museum employees were first named as suspects and the museum was combed unsuccessfully. The case returned to the fore a few years ago, after the discovery of a DNA trace and a fingerprint on the frame, nurturing hopes of finding the canvas. In 2016, a man claimed to be the brainchild of the theft and promised that the painting would be returned quickly.
"The painting is in excellent condition. It is strange to think that it was hidden in a wall, close to the ground behind the vegetation for 22 years," declared Jonathan Papamarengh, Head of Culture of the town hall of Plaisance. He said he was very shocked to learn that the work had been discovered directly outside the museum, since intensive searches had obviously been carried out after the theft. In addition, the wall was not covered with ivy at the time, which conceals the alcove.
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According to Papamarengh, this work was the most sought after in the world after the Nativity of Caravaggio, which was stolen in 1969 from a church in Sicily. Last year, a missing drawing by the Austrian master entitled Zwei Liegende (Two Reclining Figures) was also discovered in an unlikely place: the drawer of a museum secretary's office in Austria. The secretary recently passed and revealed the work's location in her will.
