– credit, Andrea Lo Rosso, provided to the Media

A painting that was found in a basement signed with the name “Picasso,” but that was dismissed, thrust into a cheap frame, hung in the family house, and then in a restaurant, has finally been recognized as an authentic piece by the Spanish artist.

The value is already estimated to be $6 million, but if recognized by the Pablo Picasso Foundation in Paris, it could be worth twice or thrice that much.

The painting is believed to be an asymmetrical image of Dora Maar, who was Picasso’s lover at a time when he spent a period on the Italian island of Capri, where in the 1950s, Luigi Lo Rosso, a local pawnbroker who used to comb dumps and abandoned houses for treasure, found it in the basement of an empty villa.

According to the story, reported stateside by CNN, Lo Rosso believed it to be authentic, but his wife was less impressed, and so Luigi stuck it in a frame and gave it to her as a present to her great chagrin.

Luigi’s son, Andrea, wasn’t even born at the time. He told CNN that his mother took the Picasso and another canvas covered in dust and lime her husband had found and washed them with detergent as if they were carpets.

In college, the younger Lo Rosso came upon another piece of Picasso’s depicting Dora Maar in an art history textbook, and learned he was in Capri at the time when it was made. Coming home, he told his mom they may have something special on their hands.

It took decades, but because Andrea went through the proper channels—namely treating it as if it were stolen and registering it with the patrimony police, more attention was given to it than the experts Andrea had first contracted were willing to offer.

Locked in a police vault in Milan until 2019, the quest for authentication of the work was concluded when Cinzia Altieri, a graphologist for a patrimony court in Milan, worked for several months to authenticate the Picasso signature in the corner—it was 100% real.

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Andrea hasn’t stopped at Altieri’s examination, nor on the word of Luca Gentile Canal Marcante, an art expert and honorary president of the Swiss-based art restoration non-profit Arcadia Foundation, who also says it is doubtlessly authentic.

Andrea is seeking the approval of the Picasso Foundation in Paris—something his father always hoped might come to pass.

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“I’m happy but let’s wait to toast, there is still one step to take before we consider this incredible story over,” Andrea Lo Rosso said.

“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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