Painting is worth 6 million A junk dealer has had Picasso in his living room for 60 years - and doesn't know it
Almost 60 years ago, an Italian discovered a painting while clearing out and hung it up in his home. Now it is known: It is an original work by Pablo Picasso.
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- While clearing out a cellar in a villa on Capri in the early 1960s, a junk collector finds a rolled-up canvas with the signature "Picasso".
- Decades later, his son discovers that it could be an original painting.
- The Arcadia Foundation, a Swiss non-profit organization, carried out a series of investigations and confirmed the originality of the work.
While clearing out a cellar in a villa on Capri in the early 1960s, a junk collector found a rolled-up canvas depicting the asymmetrical and disheveled face of a woman. On the painting, in the car on the left, is a signature: "Picasso".
But the man doesn't pay much attention to it. So he took the canvas home, where his wife framed it and hung it up in the living room. It remained there for decades.
It was only when the couple's eldest son noticed a certain similarity between the painted picture and the portraits of the famous painter that the whole family began to wonder whether it wasn't an original work.
So they get to work: they have chemical analyses carried out on the materials, compare it with other works and carry out historical research.
All this leads to the conviction that the painting is the "Buste de Femme Dora Maar". In other words, one of the portraits of the photographer and muse of Pablo Picasso, which were created in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
A Swiss foundation intervenes
The story has been picked up by the website "Wired.it", among others. According to this, the Arcadia Foundation is also involved in the investigation of the painting. It commissioned specialists to analyze the authenticity of the supposed sensational find.
The result: the painting is an original. The proof ultimately comes from the forensic graphologist Cinzia Altieri, who establishes that the signature is by the hand of the great master.
A work worth 6 million euros
"The signature 'Picasso' on the front of the original painting is handwritten and can be attributed to the hand of the master," the report states.
The work is currently being kept in a safe in Milan. It is said to be worth almost 6 million francs. However, if it is officially recognized by the Picasso Foundation, its value could rise to over 10 million francs.
