What the painting shows

Portrait of a Lady by Klimt shows the face and torso of a young woman with dark brown hair against a mottled green background. She appears in three-quarter profile, turning her head back over her shoulder to gaze directly at you. Her dark hair is swept up into a high, rounded volume that frames her pale face. Broad, visible brushwork creates soft pink and red flushes on her cheeks and lips, with dark, defined arches marking her eyebrows.

Her body is draped in a loose garment rendered with vigorous, visible strokes. The fabric combines shades of pale white, blue, and grey, dotted with touches of red, purple, and ochre yellow. The lower left corner carries Gustav Klimt’s signature, applied in dark paint against the sea-green field. The overall style is unusually lively and expressionistic compared to the rigid decorative geometric fields found in many of his earlier works.

Klimt painted this piece between 1916 and 1917, placing it within his final series of portraits. During these late years, Klimt painted both prominent society figures and young models from working-class backgrounds who visited his Vienna studio. The exact identity of the woman shown here remains unknown. The canvas measures 60 by 55 centimetres, creating a compact, focused view that emphasizes the model’s direct expression.

The story behind it

This canvas conceals another work underneath its surface. In 1996, an Italian art student realized that the composition closely matched a lost Klimt painting known as Portrait of a Young Lady, which had been shown in Dresden in 1912 under the title Dame mit Hut and had disappeared from public view in 1917. X-ray testing confirmed the discovery, showing that Klimt had worked directly over the earlier depiction of a girl in a hat and scarf. Art historians believe Klimt had an affair with the earlier sitter and reworked the canvas after she died suddenly.

Italian collector Giuseppe Ricci Oddi purchased the painting in 1925. In 1931, it entered the Galleria d’Arte Moderna Ricci Oddi in Piacenza, an institution established specifically to house his art collection. For decades, the painting hung among nineteenth- and twentieth-century figurative works by Italian artists.

On 22 February 1997, the painting was reported stolen while the museum was undergoing renovations. The gallery alarm system was turned off during the construction work. Investigators found the painting’s empty frame left behind on the museum roof beside a skylight that was far too narrow for the canvas to pass through. Police initially investigated gallery guards, but they closed the inquiry after finding no conclusive evidence.

Months later, police intercepted a forged version intended for former Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi in Tunisia, raising theories that the original had been swapped earlier. In December 2019, gardeners clearing thick ivy from an exterior museum recess found a canvas wrapped in black plastic inside the wall cavity. Expert testing confirmed the recovered painting was the authentic original. Following legal reviews and a temporary loan exhibition at the Museum of Rome, the canvas returned to Piacenza.

Where to see it

You can see Portrait of a Lady at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna Ricci Oddi in Piacenza, Italy. It remains a key highlight of the museum’s permanent collection alongside works from Italian painters and sculptors. You can also explore our complete catalog of every Klimt painting to see how this late piece fits into his artistic career.