Two Piacenza burglars have
confessed to stealing and then returning a Klimt portrait which
was recently declared to be authentic after being found in the
bowels of the museum in the northern town it was stolen from.
Police are investigating reports in the local daily Libertà,
to whom the thieves confessed, that a ransom was paid by a local
bank.
Experts have declared the painting found in Piacenza in
December to be an authentic work by Gustav Klimt, the northern
city said on Friday.
The painting is Klimt's Portrait of a Lady, which went
missing from Piacenza's Ricci Oddi Modern Art Gallery in 1997
and was presumed stolen.
During work to clean up ivy covering the gallery's exterior
wall, an interspace closed by a door was discovered, behind
which there was a bag containing the picture.
"This news is of historic importance for the artistic and
cultural community and for the city of Piacenza," said Mayor
Patrizia Barbieri and Culture chief Jonathan Papamarenghi.
Barbieri and Papamarenghi thanked the experts and the
police who worked on the case and "never gave up the
investigation".
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