In the historic town of Pompei, near the bustling city of Naples, an Italian family’s living room held an unassuming secret for decades. A painting, once discarded in a dump, hung on their walls, blending into the backdrop of everyday life. There was no special attachment to it, in fact, “My mother called it ugly,” the junk dealer’s son, Andrea Lo Russo, said Thursday. “Here, we are used to landscapes featuring the sea.”
It wasn’t until the family decided to delve into the origins of this mysterious artwork that an astonishing possibility came to light: could this painting, found in such humble circumstances, be a masterpiece by the legendary Pablo Picasso?
The story begins in the early 1960s when a junk dealer, hired to clear out a villa on the idyllic island of Capri, stumbled upon a rolled-up canvas in a pile of trash. Little did he know, this piece of discarded art would spark a family’s quest spanning over half a century. The canvas, depicting a female figure, was brought home and eventually adorned the walls of the family’s restaurant in Pompei, where it remained an overlooked piece of decor for years.
The turning point came when the junk dealer’s son, Andrea Lo Russo, noticed a striking resemblance between the painting in his family’s possession and a Picasso he saw in a middle school textbook. Despite his teacher’s and father’s skepticism, Lo Russo’s curiosity was piqued, and a lifelong journey of authentication began. He and his brother drove to Paris, where he consulted with experts at the Picasso Museum. They were intrigued but ultimately noncommittal.
“They looked, and they said, ‘It is not possible,’” Lo Russo recalled. But they did invite him to leave the painting with them, something that Lo Russo declined to do. Nevertheless, Lo Russo did not give up; over the years, he faced challenges, from fraudsters to legal scrutiny, but his determination never wavered.
Recently, the Swiss-based Arcadia Foundation conducted a series of tests that have brought the family closer to the truth than ever before. Luca Marcante, a trained chemist who founded the Arcadia Foundation in 2000 to investigate the provenance of artworks, concluded that the paints used were consistent with Picasso’s palette during the period in question, and a handwriting expert authenticated the signature in the upper-left corner as Picasso’s.
Still, that’s not enough to be conclusive, the final word on the painting’s authenticity lies with the Picasso Administration in Paris, which has yet to respond to the family’s inquiries. It is not often that a new masterpiece by a legendary artist is found—even more astounding if in a trash heap—but for now the world will have to wait a while longer to find out if the Lo Russo family’s rare find can be called a genuine Picasso.
Lo Russo’s tale of art, history, and serendipity captivates the imagination. It’s a reminder that beauty and value can be found in the most unexpected places and that the legacy of great artists like Picasso continues to unfold in surprising ways even decades after their death.
