World
Italian family believes painting found in a dump in 1960s is a Picasso and seeks authentication
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.
“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.
“They looked, and they said, ‘It is not possible,’” Lo Russo recalled. He said that he declined their invitation to leave the painting for further examination, not wanting to relinquish it.
Over the years, Lo Russo said that his attempts to verify the painting exposed him to fraudsters who tricked him out of money, and even landed him under investigation for suspicion of trafficking in forged art — which was dropped after he produced paperwork showing his attempts to verify the painting’s origin.
After decades of trying to determine the painting’s provenance, Lo Russo believes that a recent battery of tests carried out by the Swiss-based Arcadia Foundation finally offers proof that it’s the work of Picasso.
They include lab tests that show the paints used were consistent with Picasso’s color palette during the period in question, said Luca Marcante, a trained chemist who founded the Arcadia Foundation in 2000 to investigate the provenance of artworks. Most recently, a handwriting expert authenticated the signature on the upper-left hand corner as that of Picasso, Marcante said.
The only entity that can authenticate the painting is the Picasso Administration in Paris. It hasn’t responded to a series of inquires over the years. Marcante said that he’s preparing to share the most recent findings with them.
“You need to understand, they get dozens of inquiries every day from private people believing they have found a Picasso,’’ Marcante said.
Contacted by The Associated Press, the Picasso Administration declined to comment on the case.
Marcante put the value of the painting at 6 million euros ($6.6 million), but said that if fully authenticated, it would soar to 10-12 million euros. After years of hanging casually in the Lo Rosso family home, it’s now in a vault in Milan.
Marcante said that the painting is strikingly similar to a 1949 painting attributed to Picasso called “Tete du femme,’’ which is included in the online Picasso Project curated by the Sam Houston State University in Texas.
Marcante said that there is photographic proof Picasso visited the ruins of Pompeii in 1917, and asserts that he likely also visited nearby Capri, where he may have painted the Lo Russo-owned canvas sometime in the early 1940s, leaving it behind “forgotten in time.”
Marcante is convinced that the found painting isn’t a forgery, because of the differences between the two, including different ceilings, and a missing edge on the seat.
The painting “Tete du femme,” appears to be of Picasso’s one-time lover Dora Maar, given the dark hair and dark eyes, according to Enrique Mallen, the Picasso scholar who runs the online project. He cast doubt on the theory that Picasso would have created two paintings that were so similar.
“From what I know of studying Picasso for 30 years, he would never do an identical copy of his own work,’’ Mallen told The Associated Press. “He was quoted as saying, ‘You can copy anyone expect yourself.’”
The only record of “Tete du femme” was in a 1967 book, where it was listed as being in a private collection in Turin. It has never turned up in other references, Mallen said.
Mallen underlined that his online database, which numbers more than 41,000 Picasso entries, assembles images of paintings, sculptures, drawings and other works attributed to the artist, but doesn’t attest to their authentication — something only the Picasso Administration can do.
Marcante called the “Tete du femme” “a ghost painting, because no one has ever seen it.”
“The only real one is ours, that we have examined in a scientific manner. We are convinced of our work, and of the results science has given us,” Marcante said. “We can touch this painting with our hands. It is real, it is authentic.”
If the painting his father discovered is confirmed to be a Picasso, Lo Russo said that the family is still trying to figure out if they would sell it, caught in a whirlwind of inquiries since news of the painting’s suspected provenance surfaced this week.
“We are confused ourselves,” he said.
Russian troops on Wednesday took the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region after it withstood more than two years of attacks following the Kremlin’s invasion.
The eventual seizure of the town signifies Russia’s leg up when it comes to the sheer manpower advantage it has over Ukraine, as Kyiv continues to plead with the West for more and faster supplies of weaponry.
A Ukrainian service member rides a tank near Vuhledar, Feb. 22, 2023. (Reuters/Alex Babenko)
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A press officer from the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of Ukraine’s Armed Forces – a unit known for its hardy resistance – said according to a translation provided by Pravda Ukraine on Thursday that the wounded soldiers were successfully evacuated, but under “very difficult” conditions.
“The enemy pressed from the flanks, complicating logistics significantly,” Arsenii Prylipka told the news outlet before adding, “This is war. It is impossible to have no losses.”
Prylipka highlighted the strain of the situation and said the commanding officer was forced to make a decision amid heavy fighting.
“They are continually striking, controlling, and complicating logistics, so a decision is made right on the battlefield,” he added, rebuffing any question that criticized the decision to withdraw from the coal mining town.
Ukraine’s eastern military command said it had ordered a pullback from the town to prevent Russian troops from encircling its forces positioned in Vuhledar and to “preserve personnel and military equipment,” reported Reuters.
Apartment buildings damaged by a Russian military strike in Vuhledar in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, Oct. 10, 2023. (Reuters/Yevhen Titov)
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Though the town reportedly had a population of some 14,000 before Russia’s invasion in February 2022, it has been a frontline town since the start of the war, with the majority of the town’s residents having long since evacuated.
Images show the beating the town has received after undergoing more than two years of Russian bombardment, many of the buildings not only abandoned, but smoke-covered and crumbling.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his war aim is to take the whole of the Donbas region from Ukraine, and his troops currently occupy an estimated 80% of it.
The last of the Ukrainian troops to withdraw from Vuhledar left Tuesday night, reported Reuters.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday backed the decision by the commanding officer to withdraw his brigade from the town.
Members of the 1st Independent Tank Brigade near Vuhledar, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, March 6, 2023. (Reuters/Lisi Niesner)
“It is necessary to protect their lives, because they are more important than any buildings. These are our people, these are citizens of Ukraine,” he said in response to a question by a reporter about the withdrawal following a meeting with the new NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
“Therefore, it is very correct that they leave and can save themselves. For the sake of the state, for the sake of its heroic service,” he added.
As Germany celebrates 34 years of national unification, the chancellor’s choice of location for the national anniversary leaves many wondering how politically harmonious the nation is in the face of a looming 2025 federal election.
Germany marked 34 years of unification on Thursday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz attending a ceremony in the picturesque Schwerin, a city in the country’s former east.
During a speech delivered at the nation’s northern Mecklenburg State Theatre, the German leader said that Germany’s formerly divided west and east should no longer be distinguished.
This should be especially apparent for “young people”, Scholz said, adding “The life satisfaction of Germans in east and west has largely equalised.”
A testament to this is that “many global technology companies are now also setting up in east Germany,” he explained.
Despite the celebration — marking the end of 40-years of the political Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) binaries — the chancellor cautioned that Germans should never forget this divisive period, which resulted in the “collapse” for many east Germans.
After a flag of German unity was raised for the first time out the front of the Reichstag building in Berlin in 1990, millions of Germans in the east lost their jobs. Millions more were forced to migrate to the west looking for better opportunities.
The 2024 “Setting Sail as One”-themed German Unity Day events aims to highlight this, with Scholz reiterating in his speech this loss must “never be forgotten”. But the location of the commemoration also poses a potential prescient warning: that the country risks being split once again, and on ideological lines.
The salience of Schwerin
Schwerin is the capital of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, which comprises of a 79-seat parliament. Almost half of these seats are occupied by one of the country’s oldest and most important political bodies, the Social Democrats (SPD), which includes Scholz as a member.
But the opposition, comprising of a relatively new and powerful political force, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), is representative of a new far-right shift in the German state.
The populist, Eurosceptic party won 14 seats in the most recent Mecklenburg-Vorpommern parliamentary elections — beating the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party by roughly 3% of the votes.
On Germany’s Unity Day, the AfD posted on social media platform X that although the Berlin Wall has been torn down, a new ideological barrier attempts to “divide the country”. This is the federal chairman of the CDU Friedrich Merz, the party said.
“People have long felt the catastrophic effects of established politics in their everyday lives: outdoor swimming pools, discos and streets are no longer safe,” the post said.
“Against this background, more and more citizens are realizing that our country can no longer afford any more ‘firewall’ left-wing governments. The wall must go — and a political change with the AfD must come!”
The CDU retaliated with its own social media post, stating that “unity” was a goal established since the party’s 1945-founding.
The AfD’s meteoric rise is demonstrative of a wider right tilt across the European continent, with recent Austrian, Dutch and European Parliamentary elections showing public appetite is increasing for anti-immigrant, nationalist and fiscally conservative governments.
ADVERTISEMENTIt is also representative of a growing politically divided population in Germany’s eastern states — particularly pronounced in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg — and showing in recent election results.
The AfD also won a second blocking minority in the east German state of Thuringia early in September, meaning it can now elect constitutional judges in the state.
Weeks later, the AfD garnered the second largest share of votes at the Brandenburg state election, with the contest also drawing the highest voter turnout (73%) since reunification.
These mammoth eastern gains for the far-right track with what the research suggests.
ADVERTISEMENTA recent study crunched electoral campaign data to discern AfD’s surging popularity in Germany’s east. Researchers found there was a slightly higher level of nativist and populist sentiment among those in the east compared to the west at the 2017 federal election.
These feelings were particularly prevalent in older citizens, which, according to the research, was also among Germans who developed strong political ideals during 1945 post-war “separation”.
The left and right divide
Another interesting player in Germany’s east is Sahra Wagenknecht of the recently-formed Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).
The self-described “left conservative“, and a former member of the Die Linke (Left Party), announced in October 2023 she would start her own political party. Months later, she announced her desire to be part of Germany’s eastern regions’ new governments
ADVERTISEMENTBSW ranked third in the holy trinity of German eastern state elections — Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg — which is a kind of success that shocked commentators across Germany just as much as the AfD’s recent wins.
Despite the many ostensible differences between the far right and the far left, the AfD and BSW share commonalities on wanting to curb Germany’s military support to Ukraine and clamp down on migration, among other issues.
The parties are also gaining support at the federal level, with the AfD securing 12.6% of the votes at the 2021 national election, making it the third largest party in the Bundestag.
Scholz announced in July he intends to run for re-election in 2025, which has left many scratching their heads whether he and his ruling traffic-light coalition — comprising the SPD’s, the Greens and the Freedom Democratic Party — will be voted-in for another term.
ADVERTISEMENTMore importantly, many wonder if the traditional ruling major parties, particularly in the country’s east, will survive amid the growing popularity of political polarisation.
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