A man found an old painting in his house that turned out to be a Pablo Picasso worth about $6.6 million, per the NY Post. It had been hidden for years because his mother didn’t like it, he claims. Andrea Lo Rosso said his dad, Luigi, who was a junk dealer, discovered the painting while cleaning a cellar in Capri, Italy, in 1962.
“My father was from Capri and would collect junk to sell for next to nothing,”
Lo Rosso’s son Andrea, now 60, said. Even though the painting had Picasso’s signature in the corner, Luigi didn’t know who he was at the time.
“He found the painting before I was even born and he didn’t have a clue who Picasso was,”
he said.
“He wasn’t a very cultured person… My mother didn’t want to keep it, she kept saying it was horrible,”
he added.
His wife thought the painting was ugly, but Luigi bought a cheap frame and hung it on the living room wall in Pompeii, where it stayed for decades. After some time, the family asked local experts, including art detective Maurizio Seracini, to help them investigate the painting. Finally, graphologist Cinzia Altieri confirmed that the signature was indeed Picasso’s.
The artwork is believed to have been painted between 1930 and 1936 and is thought to be a portrait of Picasso’s mistress, Dora Maar, with whom he was involved until their breakup in 1945. Picasso created over 14,000 pieces of art before he died in 1973.
Although Luigi passed away before the painting was authenticated, Andrea is determined to. The Picasso Foundation in Malaga, Spain, will make the final decision, but for now, the painting is kept in a vault in Milan. Andrea always suspected it was a real Picasso and would honor his father by proving it.
#Clique, what are your thoughts?
