A painting by Gustav Klimt stolen 23 years ago has been found.

The painting "Portrait of a Lady" was stolen from a gallery in southern Piacenza, Italy, in 1997. Italian authorities believed the painting was lost forever – until last December, when gardeners discovered it hidden in an exterior wall of the very same gallery.

"Portrait of a Lady" was painted in 1916-1917 by the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt. In 1925, the work was acquired by art collector Giuseppe Ricci Oddi and displayed at Piacenza until it was stolen on February 22, 1997, just before a special exhibition was scheduled to take place there.

In December 2019, gardeners clearing away the ivy discovered a metal plate on a wall covered in it. Inside was a black bag containing the missing painting. "This ivy hadn't been cleared for a decade," Italian authorities added.

Prosecutor Ornella Chicca said further tests will determine whether the painting had been in the wall since it was stolen, or some time later. Once the tests are complete, the artwork will be put back on display.

To determine if this was the original painting, experts studied it under infrared and ultraviolet light, and compared it with photographs and records taken in 1996. "The correspondence between the results allowed us to conclude that this is definitely the original painting," shared art expert Guido Cauzzi.

He also added that the artwork is currently in "pretty good" condition, "it has a few scratches but only needs some simple maintenance, nothing complicated."

Before the painting was stolen, an art student named Claudia Maga revealed that "Portrait of a Lady" was actually painted over another Klimt painting, "Portrait of a Young Lady"—a painting that had also not been seen since 1912. After some research with the gallery's management in Piacenza, Maga proved her hypothesis. The original "Portrait of a Young Lady" depicted a young girl in Vienna (Austria). However, after the girl's sudden death, the renowned painter Klimt painted another picture over her portrait, perhaps to conceal the pain she left behind.

Lan Oanh