The "Portrait of a Lady" by Gustav Klimt, stolen in 1997 in Piacenza, may have been found

It is still not certain – checks and checks are underway – but according to the papers a famous painting by Gustav Klimt – "Portrait of a Lady" – which was stolen in February 1997 by the Ricci Oddi Modern Art Gallery of Piacenza. The picture was found right in the Gallery, the newspapers write, "during the cleaning of an ivy that covered an external wall", in a "cavity closed by a door, inside which there was a sack , with the picture inside ”. The director of the Gallery, Massimo Ferrari, said that "the stamps and the sealing wax are original". This could mean that for all these years the painting had remained in the Gallery. writes Republic:

The thieves may have hidden the picture in the gap on the outer wall and then retrieved it a few days later. But then, perhaps also due to media attention and surveillance of the police, they failed. The picture, in short, one of the most sought-after works of art in the world, may have been hidden for 22 years on the outer wall of the gallery where it had been stolen, without anyone finding it and without anyone knowing about the hiding place going to retrieve it.

The first investigations at the time of the theft focused on the gallery's keepers, but they went nowhere. Over the years the most bizarre hypotheses have been made, from an "esoteric trail" according to which the picture would have been stolen by a satanic sect, to that according to which some traffickers had mistaken it for drugs and diamonds. "If the authenticity of the analyzes that will be carried out in the coming days would be confirmed, it would be a great result for this city," said the Culture Councilor of Piacenza, Jonathan Papamarenghi.

Gustav Klimt, born 14 July 1862 in Baumgarten, near Vienna, and died on 16 February 1918 due to a lung infection, is considered one of the most important artists of the symbolist art movement and was one of the founders of the Viennese Secession , a movement born in Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century by painters, architects and sculptors, who wanted to take art beyond the borders set by the academy.

20 paintings by Gustav Klimt