Nothing was known about Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of a Lady" since the painting was stolen 23 years ago at an art gallery in Piacenza, north of Italy. But the 60m-euro work of art is thought to have been found, ironically, on the gallery wall where it lost its footprint 23 years ago.
As one of the workers was cleaning the ivy on the outside wall of the gallery, it looked like a cavity, inside which was found a painting wrapped in a plastic bag.
We are currently working on its verification, but the gallery's director, Massimo Ferrari, is convinced that it is the original painting because it has the same wax stamps on the back.
Police are investigating whether the thieves hid the painting in the gallery in order to distract the media and police, but it is not yet known what forced them to never return.
The painting was stolen on February 22, 1997 by the Ricci-Oddi Modern Art Gallery in Piacenza. Her frame was thrown to the roof of the building, an attempt the thieves made to get the painting out the window.
The portrait of a Lady is thought to have been painted by a Viennese artist in 1916-1917, when Klimt was in his final years. What makes his painting extraordinary is the fact that a few months before it was stolen, an art student, Claudia Maga, discovered at the time that the Portrait of a Lady was painted above another work by the artist, Portrait of a Young Lady (1912). ). She managed to prove this through an X-ray test.
The original painting showed the portrait of a young girl from Vienna who had died suddenly. Klimt painted another portrait, how to forget the pain of her death.
Source: BBC, CNN
