Neznámá z portrétu – de Peretti Camille (2025)

What do Gustav Klimt, an American billionaire, and a young student from Texas have in common? More than it might seem at first glance: all were impacted by the portrait of an unknown woman, a work with a history full of surprising twists and questions.
The Portrait of a Lady, a painting created by Gustav Klimt in Vienna in 1910, was purchased by an unknown collector in 1916, reworked by the author a year later, stolen from the Museum of Modern Art in Piacenza in 1997, only to be rediscovered undamaged two years later in its gardens.
No art expert, curator, or police investigator has any idea who the young woman captured in the portrait is or what secrets lie behind the turbulent history of her likeness.
Author Camille de Peretti masterfully weaves the life story of this woman and generations of her descendants, stretching from the streets of Vienna at the beginning of the last century, through Manhattan during the economic crisis following the stock market crash in 1929, Texas in the 1980s, contemporary New York, Vienna, and Italian Piacenza.
This novel spanning the 20th century tells of love and disappointment, insurmountable social differences, the American dream, and dark secrets of the past. The author vividly depicts the fates...