Check your closets everyone. You may be harboring a valuable work of art that you can unload for some cool, hard cash. An unnamed Maine individual found a painting in a closet of the house he inherited from his father. The 16" x 16" painting was done by Pablo Picasso in 1919 as a study for a the larger "Le Tricorne" commission he painted for a London ballet of the same name. Since 2015 the New York Historical Society has displayed the giant curtain painting but the study had been all but forgotten.
via HuffPost:
The website liveauctioneers.com reported the sale price of the painting was $150,000, plus a 24% buyer's premium.
Neither the buyer nor the seller was named, but the seller gave a statement on the website saying the painting was found in a closet of a home his father inherited from a female relative who studied art in Europe in the 1920s.
"This painting was discovered in a house owned by my great aunt which was passed down to her from her uncle in the late 1930s," the statement reads. "There were several paintings kept in a closet for 50 years (including this example) which were left by her at the time of the passing of the house to my father and now to me."
The buyer will have at least 120 days to authenticate the painting with The Claude Picasso Administration, which is managed by the artist's son.
