Sky Arte Series Explores Lost Masterpieces with Factum Arte Reproductions

Starting April 5, 2018, Sky Arte HD will air 'I Misteri dei Capolavori Perduti,' a seven-documentary series produced by Sky Arts Production Hub. Each episode focuses on a lost painting, exploring its history and the circumstances of its disappearance—whether theft, destruction, or deliberate loss. The series collaborates with Factum Arte, a global organization known for supporting contemporary artists and museum restoration projects, to create faithful reproductions of the missing works. The first episode examines Gustav Klimt's 1901 painting 'Medicine,' commissioned in 1894 for the ceiling of the Great Hall of the University of Vienna. The work sparked controversy for its depiction of the futility of healing and a fully nude pregnant woman, leading to its rejection by the Faculty of Medicine. During World War II, the painting was moved to Schloss Immendorf, a castle north of Vienna, to protect it from Allied bombings. On May 7, 1945, as Nazis surrendered in Austria, an SS unit raided the castle during their retreat. The next day, they planted explosives in the four towers, detonating them as Russian forces approached. The castle burned for four days, destroying Klimt's masterpiece. Factum Arte's experts will attempt to reproduce the monumental painting using only a black-and-white photograph as reference.