Back in 1962, a junk dealer named Luigi Lo Rosso found a painting while cleaning out the basement of a villa on Italy’s island of Capri. More than 60 years later, the painting is believed to be an original by famous Cubist artist Pablo Picasso.
Upon discovering the painting, Lo Rosso took it to his Pompeii home, placed it in a cheap frame, and hung it on a wall. His wife supposedly wasn’t thrilled about it, finding it “horrible,” but his son Andrea became quite intrigued by it decades later.
Andrea was reading an encyclopedia of art history when he noticed that the painting on the wall of his family home not only featured “Picasso” signature on the upper left corner but also looked quite similar to Picasso’s famous works. Lo Rosso family then decided to contact the Arcadia Foundation, an art authentication and appraisal institution, to see if their Picasso artwork was real.
Arcadia Foundation carried out an extensive examination, one that took several years, and ended up determining that the painting in the possession of the Lo Rosso family is indeed a genuine Picasso painting. Their conclusion is that it features Picasso’s muse, Dora Maar, and could be worth €6 million ($6.6 million).
However, the process is not entirely complete. The Picasso Foundation in Málaga, Spain, has the ultimate word on authentication of Pablo Picasso pieces and so far has refused to examine Lo Rosso’s artwork.
