Portrait of a lady

Austrian artist Gustav Klimt painted this Portrait of a Lady between 1916 and 1917, during the final years of his life. The work shows a woman against a colorful, patterned background typical of Klimt's decorative style. What makes this painting extraordinary isn't just its artistic merit but its dramatic history of theft, disappearance, and miraculous rediscovery.

In February 1997, the painting was stolen from the Ricci Oddi Modern Art Gallery in Piacenza, Italy. Thieves apparently removed it from its frame and escaped through a skylight. For over two decades, the work vanished completely. Then in December 2019, a gardener clearing ivy from the gallery's exterior wall discovered a metal panel. Behind it sat the stolen Klimt, hidden in a garbage bag inside a cavity in the wall. The painting had been concealed just feet from where it originally hung, worth an estimated sixty million euros.

X-ray analysis later revealed another surprise: beneath the visible portrait lies an earlier painting of a different woman. Klimt had painted over his own work, a practice not uncommon among artists reusing canvases. The hidden portrait had been considered lost since 1912. Today the recovered painting remains at the Ricci Oddi Gallery, now protected by significantly improved security. It stands as one of the most notable art recovery stories of the twenty-first century.