Mystery of stolen Klimt is solved after gallery walls spill their secrets

Italian detectives may be on the cusp of solving one of the art world’s most baffling mysteries after a Gustav Klimt painting thought to be stolen may have been found stashed within the walls of the gallery where it went missing over two decades ago.

Earlier this week, a gardener clearing ivy from the Ricci Oddi modern art gallery, in the northern city of Piacenza, saw a metal panel in the wall and prised it open to peer between the external and internal gallery walls.

‘‘I found this box inside a black sack and at first I thought it was trash, but then I called my superiors right away,’’ the worker told Italian media.

Gallery officials told The Daily Telegraph they are cautiously optimistic that the painting is

Klimt’s Portrait of a Lady, which went missing from the gallery in February 1997.

‘‘It would be the best Christmas present ever,’’ said Laura Bonfanti, the Ricci Oddi’s vice-president.

‘‘[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 whereabouts of the Austrian master’s painting, believed to be worth €60 million (NZ$101m), has frustrated Italy’s art detectives for two decades. There were rumours the painting had fallen into the hands of a satanic sect. Others speculated about an inside job involving gallery associates.

Roberto Riccardi, a Carabinieri general and art detective who oversees the agency’s cultural patrimony unit, said: ‘‘We are not excluding the possibility that the painting has been there the whole time.’’

The painting gained notoriety the year before its disappearance when a young art student discovered that it was Klimt’s only ‘‘double’’ portrait, with the visible painting completed on top of another, Portrait of a Young Lady, which had not been seen since 1912.

But in February 1997 as the paintings a were packed up ahead of an exhibition to showcase the new find, the Klimt disappeared.

The only clue detectives were left was the painting’s heavy frame, which was found on the gallery roof – despite being too large to fit through the only roof window.

Police even enlisted a local art thief to help with their investigations, but to no avail.

– Telegraph Group

AP AP Police officers stand next to painting which was found inside a gallery’s walls, in Piacenza, northern Italy.

This image taken from a video distributed by Italian police shows an unidentified man showing a police officer a metal panel in which a painting was found, in Piacenza, northern Italy.