Experts Claim Painting Found By Junk Dealer In A Cellar Is An Original Picasso (image @pablocubist)

A painting which was found by a junk dealer who was clearing out the cellar of a home in Capri, appears to be an original portrait by Pablo Picasso, claimed Italian experts. The painting was regularly decried as “horrible” by his wife.

The man named Luigi Lo Ross, stumbled across the picture in 1962. He took the rolled up canvas with him to Pompeii, where the picture hung in a cheap frame on the living room hall for a few decades.

The picture is believed to be a distorted image of Dora Maar, a French photographer and painter who was said to be Picasso’s mistress and muse. The painting also featured Picasso’s distinctive signature in the top left-hand corner. Unfortunately, Lo Ross didn’t know who the painter was.

The suspicions on the picture was raised much later when the man’s son Andrea started to question the image after he studied an encyclopedia of art history given to him by his aunt. Suspicions were aroused regarding the picture.

The family then sought advice from a team of experts including a well-known art detective, Maurizio Seracini. After years of complex investigations, Cinzia Altieri, a graphologist confirmed that the signature on the painting was indeed Picasso’s. Altieri is member of the scientific committee and attributions of art works. The painting is today valued at €6m (£5m).

Speaking to The Guardian, Altieri said, “after all the other examinations of the painting were done, I was given job of studying the signature. I worked on it for months, comparing it with some of his original works. There is no doubt that the signature is his. There was no evidence suggesting that it was false”.

Lo Ross died, but his son Andrea, who is 60 now, pursued his quest to discover the artist behind the painting.

“My father was from Capri and would collect junk to sell for next to nothing. 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 encyclopedia 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”.

Pablo Picasso was a frequent visitor of the southern Italian island of Capri. The painting, which is strikingly similar to Picasso’s Buste de femme (Dora Maar), is believed to have been produced between 1930 and 1936.

Andrea said he thought of getting rid of the painting. He said his mother did not want to keep it and kept saying it looks “horrible”. He also said that he had contacted the Picasso Foundation in Malaga several times, but it had shown no interest in examining the painting, believing them to be false. The foundation has the ultimate word on the authenticity of the painting, now stashed in a vault in Milan.

Pablo Picasso, who died in 1973, created over 14,000 works, and the Picasso Foundation receives hundreds of messages every day from people claiming to be in possession of an original.

Andrea said he is just curious to know what the Picasso Foundation would say. He said their aim has always been to establish the truth, and are not interested in making money out of it.