The painting found by a junk dealer in the basement turned out to be an original Picasso

A painting found by a junk dealer in a basement is an original by Picasso, experts say. The portrait hung in a cheap frame for decades, with the owner's wife calling it "horrible" and the family considering getting rid of it.

A painting that was found by a ragpicker while clearing out the basement of a Capri house and which his wife regularly decried as “horrible” is an original portrait by Pablo Picasso, Italian experts say.

As The Guardian tells it, after Luigi Lo Rosso stumbled across the painting in 1962, he took the folded canvas with him to Pompeii, where it hung in a cheap frame on his living room wall for the next few decades.

The portrait, which its owners now believe is a distorted image of Dora Maar, the French photographer and artist who was Picasso's lover and muse, bore the famous artist's signature signature in the upper left corner. But Lo Rosso did not know who he was, The Guardian claims.

Suspicions arose much later, when his son Andrea, having studied the encyclopedia on art history given to him by his aunt, began asking questions.

The family eventually turned to a panel of experts for advice, including renowned art detective Maurizio Seracini. After several years of complex investigations, Cinzia Altieri, a graphologist and member of the scientific committee of the Arcadia Foundation, which deals with the assessment, restoration and attribution of works of art, confirmed that the signature on the painting, which is now estimated at 6 million euros, belongs to Picasso.

“After all the other examinations of the painting were carried out, I was assigned to study the signature,” Cinzia Altieri told The Guardian. “I worked on it for several months, comparing it to some of his original work. There is no doubt that the signature belongs to him. There was no evidence that it was fake."

Picasso was a frequent visitor to the southern Italian island of Capri, and the painting, which bears a striking resemblance to Picasso's Bust of a Woman (Dora Maar), is believed to have been created between 1930 and 1936, notes The Guardian.

Lo Rosso has since died, but his son Andrea, now 60, has continued the search for the artist behind the painting.

“My father was from Capri and collected junk to sell for next to nothing,” he said. “He found the painting before I was born and had no idea who Picasso was. He was not a very cultured man. While reading about Picasso's work in the encyclopedia, I looked at the painting and compared it with his signature. I kept telling my father that it was similar, but he didn’t understand. But as I grew older, I continued to be surprised.”

Andrea Lo Rosso says there were times when the family considered getting rid of the painting. “My mother didn’t want to keep her - she kept saying it was terrible.”

He contacted the Picasso Foundation in Malaga several times, but, according to him, they showed no interest in considering his statements, considering them false. The fund is decisive regarding the authenticity of the painting, which is now kept in a vault in Milan.

Picasso, who died in 1973, created more than 14,000 works and the foundation receives hundreds of messages a day from people claiming to have the original, The Guardian writes.

Luca Marcante, president of the Arcadia Foundation, believes there may be two versions of this work. “They can both be originals,” he told the newspaper Il Giorno. “These are probably two portraits, not exactly the same, on the same theme, painted by Picasso at different times. One thing is certain: the painting found in Capri and now kept in a vault in Milan is genuine.”

Marcante will now present evidence to the Picasso Foundation.

“I'm curious to know what they say,” Lo Rosso said. “We were an ordinary family, and our goal was always to establish the truth. We are not interested in making money from this.”