As it gathered dust in a cheap frame on the family living room wall, a portrait deemed “horrible” by a second-hand dealer’s wife turned out to be a Picasso, according to Italian experts.
A treasure ignored for decades? In Italy, specialists have just assessed a painting that hung on the wall of a family living room as being a Pablo Picasso without much conviction, revealed the British newspaper The Guardian.
For good reason, the family had even planned to get rid of it, to the delight of the wife, who found it “horrible”.
It all started in 1962, when a man came across the canvas and rolled it up and took it home to Pompeii to hang on his living room wall. But it was only decades later that his son, named Andrea, saw his suspicions aroused thanks to a history encyclopedia, which tipped him off.
A signing estimated at 6 million euros
At the time he acquired the painting, the owner had seen the signature written on it, but did not know who the famous artist was.
“My father was from Capri and collected junk objects which he resold for almost nothing,” the man, aged around sixty, explained to the Guardian. “He found the painting before I was even born and had no idea who Picasso was. He was not very cultured,” he continued.
It was while reading the encyclopedia on the works of Pablo Picasso that he came across the signature, which he compared to the one hanging in the main room: “I kept telling my father that it was the same thing , but he didn’t understand. But as I grew up, I continued to ask myself questions,” Andrea recalled.
The family then called in a team of experts, including a renowned art detective named Maurizio Seracini. And after several years of investigation, the Arcadia Foundation’s verdict falls: the signature on the upper left corner of the painting is indeed that of Pablo Picasso, according to them. Its value is now estimated at €6 million (£5 million).
“We are not interested in making money”
Additionally, the artist frequently visited the island of Capri and the painting – bearing striking similarities to the Bust of a Woman (Dora Maar) – is believed to have been created between 1930 and 1936.
The family now believes it could be a distorted portrait of the French photographer and painter, who was Pablo Picasso’s mistress and muse.
“My mother didn’t want to keep him, she kept saying he was horrible,” Andrea Lo Rosso recalled.
The man will now be able to present the work to the Picasso Foundation in Malaga, which has the final say on the authenticity of the artist’s paintings. Already contacted by the sixty-year-old, the organization had not shown interest, but the presence of this new information could well change the situation.
“I’m curious what they will say,” he said. “We were just a normal family and our goal was always to establish the truth. We are not interested in making money.”
