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Italian family believes painting found in a dump in 1960s is a Picasso and seeks authentication

By COLLEEN BARRY - Oct 03, 2024, 12:49 PM ET
Last Updated - Dec 16, 2024, 06:39 PM EST
Italy Suspected Picasso
A painting is seen at a restoration laboratory in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. An Italian family hopes to prove definitively that a painting discarded from a villa on Capri more than 60 years ago is a Picasso. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

An Italian family hopes to prove definitively that a painting discarded from a villa on Capri more than 60 years ago is a Picasso

MILAN (AP) — 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 to 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, and it hung innocuously in the family living room and then restaurant in Pompei, near Naples, for years until his son decided to investigate.

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“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.

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