A painting discovered by a junk dealer while cleaning out the cellar of a home in Capri, Italy, may be an authentic Picasso work.
Luigi Lo Rosso came across the painting in 1962, when he brought the rolled canvas home with him to Pompeii and hung it in a cheap frame on the wall.
The painting is believed to depict Picasso with one of his romantic partners, the French photographer Dora Maar, who here appears to meld into him. The artist’s signature is scrawled in the top left corner.
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Lo Rosso was reportedly unaware of the artist until his son Andrea read an art history encyclopedia and made the connection. The family sought out a team of experts, among them the art detective Maurizio Seracini.
Following years of investigations, graphologist and Arcadia Foundation committee member Cinzia Altieri said the signature was indeed written by Picasso.
“After all the other examinations of the painting were done, I was given job of studying the signature,” Altieri told the Guardian. “I worked on it for months, comparing it with some of his original works. There is no doubt that the signature is his. There was no evidence suggesting that it was false.”
According to the Guardian, the painting is today valued at €6 million ($6.63 million).
A frequent visitor to the southern Italian island, Picasso is believed to have painted the portrait sometime between 1930 and 1936. It also resembles another work, 1938’s Buste de femme (Dora Maar), which was stolen from a Saudi sheikh’s yacht in 1999 and recovered 20 years later.
Lo Rosso is dead, but his son Andrea is now stewarding the work. Per the Guardian report, he contacted the Picasso Foundation in Málaga several times, but the foundation didn’t believe his claims. The foundation, however, has the final decision on authenticating the painting, which now sits in a vault in Milan.
Arcadia Foundation president Luca Marcante thinks there could be two versions of the piece.
“They are probably two portraits, not exactly the same, of the same subject painted by Picasso at two different times. One thing is for sure: the one found in Capri and now kept in a vault in Milan is authentic,” Marcante told Il Giorno.
Mercante plans to present evidence to the Picasso Foundation in favor of authenticating the portrait.