An Italian family hopes to prove definitively that a painting discarded from a villa on the island of Capri more than 60 years ago is a Picasso, and has been gathering scientific data it hopes will persuade Picasso's estate administration in Paris to make the definitive call. The rolled-up canvas of a female figure was discovered in a pile of trash that a junk dealer was hired to discard in the early 1960s; he framed it, and it hung innocuously in the family living room and then restaurant in Pompei, near Naples, for years until his son decided to investigate, the AP reports. "My mother called it ugly," the junk dealer's son, Andrea Lo Russo, said Thursday. "Here, we are used to landscapes featuring the sea."
Lo Russo said that his first inkling that the painting may be an important work came when he saw a Picasso in a middle school textbook, but neither his teacher nor his father were persuaded. His curiosity persisted, and in his early 20s, he and his brother drove to Paris and brought the painting to the Picasso Museum. "They looked, and they said, 'It is not possible,'" Lo Russo recalled. He said that he declined their invitation to leave the painting for further examination, not wanting to relinquish it.
- A troublesome path. Over the years, Lo Russo said that his attempts to verify the painting exposed him to fraudsters who tricked him out of money and even landed him under investigation for suspicion of trafficking in forged art—which was dropped after he produced paperwork showing his attempts to verify the painting's origin.
- Possible proof. After decades of trying to determine the painting's provenance, Lo Russo believes that a recent battery of tests carried out by the Swiss-based Arcadia Foundation finally offers proof that it's the work of Picasso. They include lab tests that show the paints used were consistent with Picasso's color palette during the period in question, says Luca Marcante, a trained chemist who founded the Arcadia Foundation in 2000 to investigate the provenance of artworks. Most recently, a handwriting expert authenticated the signature on the upper-left hand corner as that of Picasso, Marcante says.
- Verification. The only entity that can authenticate the painting is the Picasso Administration in Paris. It hasn't responded to a series of inquires over the years. Marcante says he's preparing to share the most recent findings with them. "You need to understand, they get dozens of inquiries every day from private people believing they have found a Picasso,'' Marcante says.
- It's now in a vault. Marcante puts the value of the painting at $6.6 million, but he says if fully authenticated, it would soar to around $13 million. After years of hanging casually in the Lo Rosso family home, it's now in a vault in Milan. "I'm happy but let's wait to toast, there is still one step to take before we consider this incredible story over," Lo Russo tells CNN. "I continue to work as I do every day in the hope that even in Paris they will be convinced of the authenticity of the painting.
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uBlock 
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Ghostery 
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