Picasso signature is key to deciding whether 36 paintings are forgeries
Four leading experts will examine Pablo Picasso’s signature to determine whether a previously unknown trove of works are authentic prints and paintings by the artist or simply audacious forgeries.
The experts have been appointed by a judge in Rome to adjudicate on a sensational case in which a British-based Italian businessman is claiming ownership of a long-lost collection of 36 Picasso paintings and drawings worth hundreds of millions of euros.
Marcello Santelia, 76, says that his father Giovanni, an art collector, obtained the paintings and drawings from the legendary Spanish painter in the 1950s. He insists that they are all genuine Picassos and told The Telegraph outside the courtroom earlier this week that they would be worth an “unimaginable amount” if they were ever sold at auction.
But Italian police and prosecutors claim the collection is fake. The paintings and drawings were seized by Italian police when Mr Santelia tried to sell one of them, purportedly a portrait of Picasso’s lover and muse Dora Maar, to a buyer in Dubai seven years ago.
He did so openly, applying to Italy’s culture ministry for permission to export the painting overseas. But the request aroused the suspicion of the authorities. When police went to Mr Santelia’s home in the town of Nocera Inferiore in 2018 they found the collection of 36 works, all purportedly by Picasso.
In a trial that began in April, Mr Santelia was accused of possession of counterfeit works.
At the hearing on Monday in the capital’s labyrinthine Tribunale di Roma court complex, the judge in the case, Francesco Patrone, appointed four experts whose task will be to determine whether the Picassos are genuine or not.
One of them is a professor of art history while the other three are graphologists, handwriting experts who will scrutinise the signatures on the paintings. They will compare the long-lost collection with authenticated Picasso works that are held in galleries and museums around the world.
The judge gave them more than six months to complete the task, adjourning the case until February 17.
Mr Santelia, 76, who ran a construction company in Worcester before moving back to his native Italy, vigorously denies the accusations of fraud made against him.
He is set to call a number of expert witnesses in his defence to testify as to the authenticity of the works, which are said to have been produced by Picasso between 1943 and 1956, known as The Mediterranean Years period.
Speaking to The Telegraph outside court, he said: “My father was a friend of Picasso. The paintings are genuine Picassos. I only wanted to sell one of them and I applied for permission to the Italian state.
“That’s how this whole thing started. It’s difficult to put a value on what they would be worth. It would be a terrific sum. But I don’t want to sell them. I want them to form the basis of an art foundation or museum.”
Salvatore Nocera, one of his lawyers, said. “He has all the proof about the provenance of the paintings. All 36 of them are authentic Picassos.”
Giuseppe Spagnuolo, another defence lawyer, said: “The experts appointed by the court will spend the next six months comparing the collection with Picasso paintings from all over the world. The hearing went well for us – the judge accepted our expert witness, Stefano Liberati, who is the president of an association of international art experts.”
Mr Santelia claims that his father bought the paintings from Picasso in the 1950s and brought them back to Italy, where they have been ever since. The private collection is now in the hands of a specialist art crimes unit of the Carabinieri police, pending the outcome of the trial.
Mr Santelia’s father Giovanni is said to have brought the works back to the family home in Nocera Inferiore after buying them from Picasso, a friend of his, at some point during the 1950s.
The diary of one English traveller, Pete Smith, records a visit Giovanni Santelia paid to Picasso’s home in Mougins, south east France, during Christmas 1955.
On 13 December that year, Smith wrote in his diary: “Roger’s to collect Santelia Giovanni en route to meeting Pablo [Picasso] in Mougins for Christmas.”
The following day he recorded that Picasso gave his guests some of his work, writing: “Arrive Mougins with Roger, Santelia Giovanni and Pablo. As always he has pictures for all of us to take home.”
In the past a number of Picasso paintings have sold at auction for more than $100 million. The most expensive Picasso painting ever sold at auction is Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’), painted in 1955, which was bought for $179 million at Christie’s in 2015.