In 1962, Luigi Lo Rosso discovered a seemingly unremarkable painting in the basement of a villa in Capri. And now, more than 60 years later, it has been authenticated by experts as a Picasso worth $6.6 million.
Andrea Lo RossoA painting of Lady Dora Maar, believed to be the work of Pablo Picasso, that was discovered in a basement in Capri.
In 1962, junk dealer Luigi Lo Rosso was digging through a basement on the Italian island of Capri when he discovered an unusual painting. The painting depicted an unnaturally asymmetrical woman in red and blue — and it featured what appeared to be the signature of none other than Pablo Picasso.
However, Lo Rosso, unaware of the artist’s fame and with no reason to suspect it could be authentic, brought it home to his family. For decades, the family hung the painting in their home and restaurant without realizing its historic significance and potential value.
In the 1980s, Luigi’s son Andrea recognized the painting’s similarities to Picasso’s Buste de femme Dora Maar and began to wonder whether it might actually be authentic. Despite their efforts, however, no institution was willing to authenticate the piece, leaving the family in limbo.
But in 2024, the family has finally now received validation after a graphologist recently certified Picasso’s signature as authentic, estimating the painting’s value at $6.6 million. The Lo Rosso family is now awaiting confirmation from the Picasso Foundation, the final authority on the painting’s authenticity.
Luigi Lo Rosso Discovers A Peculiar Painting In A Capri Basement
Andrea Lo RossoThe Lo Rosso family with the painting in the background.
Luigi Lo Rosso was used to digging through abandoned houses and landfills in order to find diamonds in the rough to sell at his family’s pawn shop in Pompeii. And during that Capri trip in 1962, Lo Rosso made what turned out to be an especially interesting find. At the time, however, Lo Rosso did not believe that the Picasso signature at the top left meant anything at all.
“My father was from Capri and would collect junk to sell for next to nothing,” Luigi’s son Andrea Lo Rosso told 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.”
Pablo Picasso, one of the most famous painters in the world, produced more than 14,000 pieces in his lifetime. Now scattered around the world, Picasso’s works are incredibly valuable. Art enthusiasts have scrambled to get their hands on them, including Picasso’s own electrician, Pierre Le Guennec, who hoarded nearly 300 of his works in his garage.
This also isn’t the first time someone has discovered a Picasso piece in an unlikely place. In 2021, for instance, a Picasso painting discovered in a closet in Maine sold for $150,000.
As for Luigi Lo Rosso, he simply decided to take it back home to his wife and children. Lo Rosso placed the painting in a cheap frame and gifted it to his wife, who considered it “horrible.”
Andrea Lo RossoLuigi Lo Rosso’s wife sitting in their home with the painting in the background.
Lo Rosso’s wife believed the painting was too ugly to sell, so the family hung it in their home and a restaurant that they owned for over 50 years. Lo Rosso’s wife even cleaned the painting with detergent to remove layers of grime it had accumulated in the basement.
“Mom hung it on the wall to decorate the house, renaming it ‘the scribble’ due to the strangeness of the woman’s face depicted,” Andrea Lo Rosso told CNN.
For decades, the strange painting was a staple in the Lo Rosso house. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the family began to wonder about the painting’s true value.
Andrea Lo Rosso Begins To Suspect That The Family’s Painting Is A Picasso
Andrea La Rosso was in grade school when he saw Pablo Picasso’s Buste de femme Dora Maar, a painting of the artist’s French lover, Dora Maar. Immediately, he took notice of the painting’s similarities to the one in his family home, telling his parents that the piece may be authentic and worth a lot of money.
Andrea Lo RossoAndrea Lo Rosso with the lost Picasso that’s now been authenticated.
In the following years, the family consulted with art dealers and historians to authenticate the painting. Unfortunately, these experts told the family that the piece was not an original Picasso but that they’d be happy to take it off their hands anyway. Even the Picasso Foundation told the family that they were not interested in examining the piece.
During their own research, the family discovered that Pablo Picasso had traveled to Capri several times. If he had created the painting that was now hanging in the Lo Rosso home, he would have likely done so on one of those trips, between 1930 and 1936.
Public DomainPablo Picasso in front of one of his pieces in 1912.
The family became convinced that the painting was more than just a copy. They soon registered it with Italy’s patrimony police, a specialized unit responsible for investigating the illegal smuggling of artifacts. However, without authentication, the painting was considered virtually worthless, and the family simply held onto it as the years wore on.
Experts Certify The Dora Maar Painting As An Authentic Picasso
Then, just this month, Cinzia Altieri, a graphologist for a patrimony court in Milan, certified the Picasso signature on the painting as authentic and valued the piece at a whopping $6.6 million.
“After all the other examinations of the painting were done, I was given the job of studying the signature,” Altieri told the Guardian. “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.”
Valentina Lo Rosso/FacebookValentina Lo Rosso, Andrea Lo Rosso’s daughter, holding the painting.
Now, the family awaits the findings from the Picasso Foundation, the organization that has the final say regarding the painting’s authenticity. While Luigi Lo Rosso did not live to see this moment (he passed away in 2021), the Lo Rosso family has him in mind while they await word from the foundation.
“I am curious to know what [experts at the Picasso Foundation] say,” Andrea told the Guardian. “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.”
After reading about the Picasso painting, dive into the story of nine haunted paintings rumored to be cursed. Then, view 21 stunning photos of 1920s Paris, where artists like Picasso flocked to get inspired.
