Parisian-born author Camille
de Peretti takes readers on a labyrinthine fictional
journey that explores the alluring, unnamed woman behind a mysterious
portrait painted by Austrian visual artist
Gustav Klimt.
Portrait of
an Unknown Woman commences with actual
facts about the painting and its origins. The author explains how it was always
believed that Klimt painted two images of the same woman: “Damsel” (1910) and “Portrait
of a Lady” (1917). In 1996, however, it was discovered by an art student that the
two paintings were actually “one and the same.” For some reason, Klimt altered (painted over)
the original painting. Soon after this discovery, the two-in-one painting was
stolen on February 22, 1997 and wasn’t found again until 2019, when a gardener
at the famed Ricci Oddi Art Gallery in Piacenza, Italy found it perfectly preserved--wrapped
in a garbage bag and stashed behind some overgrown ivy.
Who was the woman behind the mystery of this sought-after
portrait? Why did Klimt paint her twice? And why might the painting have gone
missing? These questions drive de Peretti’s
passionate imagination as she unfurls a riveting novel about the mysterious
woman, Klimt’s model and muse, whose turbulent life mirrors that of the iconic
long-lost painting. Readers--those with a penchant for history and art dramas--will be beguiled by a truth-melded-with-fiction-epic that crosses continents from 1900s Vienna to New York City during the Great
Depression, all the way to modern-day Italy. de Peretti’s
well-conceived, beautifully rendered narrative is anchored in well-researched
and documented facts as she creates a stunning, lyrical portrait about family loyalty,
secrets and betrayals, and star-crossed love.
Portrait
of an Unknown Woman by Camille de Peretti (Translated
from the French by Hildegarde
Serle)
Europa
Editions, paperback $19.00, 9798889661788, 256
pages
Publication Date: April 14, 2026
To order this novel on Bookshop.org, link HERE
