Portrait of an Unknown Woman

New York Times Editors' Choice

A saga inspired by the incredible but true story of the iconic Klimt painting

Painted in Vienna in 1910, Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of a Lady" was purchased by an anonymous collector in 1916, retouched by the master a year later, then stolen in 1997 before reappearing in the gardens of an Italian modern art museum in 2019. 

No art experts, museum curators, or police investigators know the identity of the young woman in the painting, nor the mysteries that surround the turbulent history of her portrait.  

From the streets of Vienna in 1900 to Texas in the 1980s, and from Manhattan during the Great Depression to contemporary Italy, de Peretti imagines the destiny of this young woman as well as that of her descendants, and creates a masterful fresco that intertwines family secrets, disappearances, and thwarted loves.