Portrait of a Woman (Klimt)

Portrait of a woman ; also Portrait of a lady
	Gustav Klimt , 1916-17
	Oil on canvas
	60 × 55 cm
	Galleria d'arte moderna Ricci Oddi (Piacenza)

The original version at the bottom left

Portrait of a Woman (also Portrait of a Lady ) is an oil painting by the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt (1862–1918), created between 1916 and 1917. It belongs to a series of portraits of women from the last years of the artist's life. It depicts the overpainting of another female portrait, Lady with a Hat , also called Backfisch and exhibited in Dresden in 1912, which was thought to be lost.

The painting was purchased in 1925 by the Italian collector Giuseppe Ricci Oddi and was shown in the Galleria d'arte moderna Ricci Oddi in Piacenza from 1931 . It was reported stolen from February 1997 to December 2019. It was one of the most wanted works of art in the world. It was found again in a hidden storage room of the museum, which it owned.

subject

In the years 1916 to 1918 Klimt portrayed several women, "on the one hand women from the highest circles, on the other hand young girls from the lower classes who populated his studio in large numbers." The painting shows the face and torso of a young woman with brown hair against a green background Quarter profile .

It is not known which woman the painting shows.

It was not until 1996, shortly before the alleged theft, that it was discovered by an Italian schoolgirl that the subject was overpainting. Klimt painted over his own "lost" woman portrait, which was exhibited in Dresden in 1912 and was later sought by art historians. The girl in the original picture is said to have been called Backfisch , it showed a young woman with a hat and a boa in a similar pose. This woman is said to have had a scar. There is a reproduction of the overpainted subject.

Provenance

The picture has been in the collection of Giuseppe Ricci Oddi (1868–1936) since 1925 . In 1931 the Galleria d'arte moderna Ricci Oddi was built, an art museum in Piacenza , specially designed for the collections of Giuseppe Ricci Oddi. The painting was on permanent display there. The museum mainly shows works by Italian artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, all representational painting and figurative sculpture.

On February 22, 1997, the painting was stolen from the museum. The alarm system was out of order at the time due to renovation It was suspected that the thieves would have escaped via the roof. The police investigation initially focused on the gallery overseers, but was subsequently closed due to a lack of evidence. Due to its popularity, the picture was not for sale. It was registered in all registers for stolen works of art worldwide. On December 10, 2019 - after ivy had been removed from the outer wall - a cavity was discovered in the wall facing the museum garden. Inside was the painting, wrapped in black plastic, which, according to the BBC, was stamped and sealed unchanged. The work is in relatively good condition. Since it was rediscovered, it has been kept in the vault of a branch of the Italian central bank. Immediately after the painting was found, the public prosecutor commissioned Ornella Chicca to conduct an expert review to determine whether the painting was genuine. The result of the investigation was announced in January 2020: “I can tell you with no small amount of emotion that the work is authentic,” Chicca told the press. After the research is complete, the painting will be returned to the museum and exhibited there.

According to the museum, the value of the painting is between 60 and 100 million euros.

In February 2020, two men who had already been convicted of art theft reported to the daily Libertá and the journalist Ermanno Mariani , who had published a book about the missing picture in 2018. They confessed to the theft in letter form and stated that they had returned the painting to the city “as a Christmas present” after the crime had expired. However, the judicial authorities are investigating the widow of Stefano Fugazza (1955–2009), the former director of the museum, for stolen goods. According to Libertá , the woman's home was searched.