Italian prosecutors have dropped
charges regarding a Gustav Klimt painting stolen from a Piacenza
gallery in 1997 and found behind an external wall of the same
gallery in December 219, judicial sources said Wednesday.
The 'Portrait of a Lady' was stolen from the Ricci Oddi modern
art gallery in 1997.
Charges have now been dropped against three persons suspected of
theft and receiving stolen goods.
A preliminary investigations judge (GIP) will now rule on the
prosecutors' request to shelve the case against them.
Prosecutors said the case would remain a cold case.
Austrian master Klimt's famed portrait was once
listed among the greatest stolen art works in the world.
In January 2020 two Piacenza burglars reportedly confessed to
stealing and then returning the Klimt portrait which was
declared to be authentic after being found in the bowels of the
museum in the northern town it was stolen from.
During work to clean up ivy covering the gallery's exterior wall
on December 14 2019, an interspace closed by a door was
discovered, behind which there was a bag containing the picture.
It went back on permanent display in the Piacenza gallery last
November.
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