Painting found by junk dealer could be an original Picasso
A painting hung in a home in Pompeii, which was found by a junk dealer in the 60s, could be an original by Pablo Picasso, according to Italian art experts.
Luigi Lo Rosso came across the said painting in 1962 while clearing out the cellar of a house in Capri. He brought the canvas to his home, placing it in a cheap frame in his living room for the next few decades. His wife described the portrait as "horrible."
Turns out, the painting was of Dora Maar, a French photographer and painter who became his mistress. The portrait depicted a distorted image of a woman wearing a blue blouse with a white and red background. The upper-left corner of the canvas featured Picasso's signature, but Lo Rosso didn't know who he was.
In the early 2000s, Lo Rosso's son, Andrea, began asking about the painting and raised how it had a resemblance to a painting he saw in an encyclopedia of art history.
The family went to art experts, and years later, Cinzia Altieri, a graphologist and member of the Arcadia Foundation, confirmed that the painting was indeed an original Picasso. The value of the piece is said to be around €6 million (P374 million).
Andrea, now 60, made the effort to discover the artist behind the painting. He shared that his family even thought about throwing the painting away.
"My mother didn't want to keep it—she kept saying it was horrible," he said, as per The Guardian.
He then reached out to the Picasso Foundation but they didn't examine the portrait and still haven't recognized its authenticity. Now, the painting sits in a vault in Milan.
Meanwhile, the Arcadia Foundation will present its findings to the Picasso Foundation.
Andrea also has no plans to sell the painting. "That painting is a piece of the Lo Rosso family of Pompeii is not for sale. We are only looking for an evaluation, but we are not selling it, because that was my father's will, who is no longer with us," he said as per Euro News.
Picasso is considered one of the most influential artists of the 20th century and is known for his cubist style. In his long life, he made about 147,800 pieces: 13,500 paintings, 100,000 prints and engravings, 300 sculptures and ceramics, and 34,000 illustrations.