Klimt’s Portrait of a Lady reappears on the walls of a museum

Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of a Lady, which had disappeared before the opening of an exhibition at a small museum in the Italian city of Piacenza 23 years ago, was recently found.
The discovery came when gardeners found a metal panel door on the external wall of the same museum. The panel contained a bag with the painting. The theft occurred in 1997. Investigators found the frame of this work—painted by Klimt between 1916 and 1917—on the roof of the museum, near a skylight. Numerous theories were put forward during the investigations: from the possibility that the theft was carried out by a well-known thief who claimed to be the author, to the hypothesis that it was part of Italy’s former prime minister Bettino Craxi’s booty.
After several tests, the authenticity of Portrait of a Lady has been confirmed, and has an estimated value of 60 million euros.
This same canvas has a complex past. In 1912, the work Portrait of a Young Lady was thought to have disappeared. It was later discovered that the Viennese artist had painted over it and renamed the new work Portrait of a Lady.