Italian family discover authentic Pablo Picasso painting
After years of hanging on the wall of the unsuspecting owners’ living room, a painting has been found to be a genuine Pablo Picasso portrait.
The pioneering artist, who experimented with different art styles throughout his life, is perhaps most recognisable for his portraits featuring jumbled faces, sharp lines, and striking colours. Thus, when Andrea Lo Rosso began studying a book of art history, he realised that the painting that his father, Luigi, had found while working as a junk dealer looked familiar.
The style of the portrait was just like the Picasso paintings that Andrea had seen in his book, prompting him to ask his parents about the origins of the piece of art hanging in an inexpensive frame in their house. Additionally, the one his parents owned featured a similar signature in the corner, suggesting to the Lo Rosso’s son that there was something special about this painting.
However, his mother hated the portrait, calling it “horrible” and stating that she didn’t want the family to keep it. Still, it remained on the living room wall for decades, causing Andrea to question his origins every time he saw it.
“My father was from Capri and would collect junk to sell for next to nothing,” Lo Rosso said (via The Guardian). “He found the painting before I was even born and didn’t have a clue who Picasso was. He wasn’t a very cultured person. While reading about Picasso’s works in the encyclopaedia I would look up at the painting and compare it to his signature. I kept telling my father it was similar, but he didn’t understand. But as I grew up, I kept wondering.”
Eventually, the remaining members of the Lo Rosso family got in contact with experts to get to the bottom of the painting’s origins. Members of the Arcadia Foundation have finally been able to confirm that the painting is, in fact, a real Picasso, and it is also worth €6 million.
The painting is now being kept in a vault in Milan, with experts claiming it is a portrait of Picasso’s mistress, Dora Maar, bearing similarities to another one of his paintings, Buste de femme (Dora Maar).
Lo Rosso has maintained that he and his family are not trying to get a cash-grab out of the situation. “We were just a normal family, and the aim has always been to establish the truth. We’re not interested in making money out of it.”
