More than fifty years ago, Luigi Lo Rosso found a painting by chance in a house in Capri, and took it home to Pompeii. Decades later, a study attributes it to Pablo Picasso, reveals “Il Giorno”.
Every time she passed this painting, the wife of Luigi Lo Rosso, an Italian second-hand dealer, described it as«horrible». She hoped to be able to detach from the wall this painting that her husband had found in a cellar of a house in Capri, in 1962, and finally be able to get rid of it. Finally, there it was carefully kept in a safe in Milan. The Italian newspaper The Day revealed Monday September 30 that this painting had been authenticated as an original by Pablo Picasso.
According to The Daythe story begins in the 1960s. Luigi Lo Rosso discovers by chance in the cellar of a house located in Capri a painting representing a distorted and asymmetrical female face. At the top left of the table there is an italicized signature stating «Picasso». But the second-hand dealer, now deceased, does not know the artist born in Malaga, and does not pay attention to him. He then rolls up the canvas without particular attention, and takes it home to Pompeii. After having been given a basic frame, it is hung on the wall of the family living room. The work will remain there for more than five decades.
It was then thanks to Luigi’s eldest son, Andrea Lo Rosso, that the view of this painting evolved. He is the first to wonder about the artist behind this painting, all after observing several paintings by Picasso in an encyclopedia. He then thinks of a “banal copy” of a work by the artist. In order to remove any doubt, the Lo Rosso family calls on a team of experts: chemical analyzes of the materials are carried out, as are comparisons with other works and other historiographical investigations.
A painting today estimated at 10 million euros
After years of investigations, Cinzia Altieri, graphologist and member of the scientific committee of the Arcadia Foundation – a private organization under Swiss law which deals with evaluations, restorations and attributions of works of art – confirmed in early September that the signature appearing on the painting was indeed that of Picasso. In her report, the expert points out that Picasso’s signature “is attributable to the hand of the master, and there is no proof of its apocryphal character”, that is to say of doubtful authenticity, reports The Day. The analyzes also made it possible to corroborate the hypothesis according to which the painting found by chance in Capri is one of the numerous portraits of Dora Maar, French poet and photographer, lover of Pablo Picasso between 1930 and 1940. The painting would then have been created between 1930 and 1936, notes the Guardian.
In an interview with the British newspaper, Andrea Lo Rosso also confided that her family had long considered getting rid of the painting. “My mother didn’t want to keep him, she kept saying he was horrible,” he recalls, adding that she considered him a “scribble”. A scribble yet valued today at nearly 10 million euros, note The Day.
The son of the second-hand dealer who made the discovery repeatedly contacted the Picasso Foundation in Malaga, which has the final say on the authenticity of the painting. But until now it has always refused to examine the documentation presented by the Lo Rosso family, due to the numerous requests of this type that it receives every day. If the painting ends up being recognized by the Foundation, however, it could be worth double its current estimate. Andrea Lo Rosso hopes to then be able to “put it up for auction”.
