A Gardener Found a Stolen Gustav Klimt Painting Tucked Behind a Secret Panel—of the Very Building It Was Stolen From

A Gustav Klimt painting stolen
23 years ago from the Ricci Oddi modern art gallery in Italy might
just have been discovered in the unlikeliest of places—inside the
walls of the gallery itself. A gardener was recently clearing ivy
from the building’s walls, the foliage of which had long been
concealing a metal panel. Upon prying it open, a small alcove was
revealed, inside of which was a black bag containing what is now
believed to be the missing canvas.

The work, Portrait of a Lady, dates between 1916-17 and is currently valued
at  €60 million ($66
million). Originally acquired in 1925 by Galleria Ricci Oddi in the
northern Italian city of Piacenza, the painting went missing in
February 1997 during preparation for an exhibition that would have
featured Portrait of a
Lady as the star of the
show. 

In a presumed attempt to throw
the police off their tracks, the thieves removed and discarded the
work’s heavy frame on the gallery’s roof. Their staging of the
scene was ostensibly done to imply that the criminals had entered
through the skylight, despite the fact that the substantially sized
frame would not have been able to fit through such a narrow
opening. Authorities are now considering whether the culprits
stashed the painting inside the wall with the intention of
retrieving it after worldwide media hype surrounding the theft died
down. 

The canvas is currently is
possession of the Italian police in an unrevealed location, where
thorough examinations regarding authenticity and condition are
being conducted. Carabinieri General Robert Riccardi, head of the
Italian force’s cultural
patrimony unit, is hesitant to make any concrete statements before
an official assessment of the work is complete, though he
acknowledged that “we are not excluding the possibility that the
painting has been there the whole time.”

Gallery director Massimo
Ferrari, on the other hand, is confident of its authenticity,
telling Piacenza
Sera that stamps on the
back of the canvas, which were imprinted when the painting was on
loan, support its identity. Ferrari’s colleague, gallery Vice
President Laura Bonfanti, echoed his sentiments, saying,
“Of course the work must now be
examined by experts to verify its authenticity but at first glance,
based on the wax seals and stamps we saw on the back of the canvas,
it appears to be the original.”

The theft has baffled Italy and
the art world for years, prompting conspiracy theories including an
inside job by gallery staff, and another involving a satanic
sect. 

This is not the first instance
in which a missing Klimt was recovered under strange circumstances:
Just last year, a drawing titled Zwei Liegende (Two Reclining
Figures) by the Austrian
master was discovered in a
cupboard belonging to a recently deceased secretary
at the Lentos Museum in the city of
Linz, the very institution from which it was stolen.

The post A Gardener Found a Stolen Gustav Klimt Painting
Tucked Behind a Secret Panel—of the Very Building It Was Stolen
From appeared first on artnet News.