In the last days of December police in Rome recovered a precious and very personal work by Picasso: the artist created the work, a sculpture and toy known as the “Little Guitar for Paloma”, for his daughter Paloma but eventually gave it to his friend, the Italian artist Giuseppe Vittorio Parisi, who treasured it for many years.
However, when he was 92, Parisi was persuaded to “lend” the work to a businessman who he thought was his friend. The businessman, who is reported to have befriended Parisi in order to obtain the sculpture, pestered the artist for some time to give him the sculpture. Finally the businessman managed to convince him that he would build a special glass exhibition case for it. Then he disappeared.
Following Paris’s death in January last year his widow reported the theft to the police who, after a meticulous investigation, found the businessman’s Pomezia apartment and there, in a cupboard, was a shoebox containing the priceless sculpture. An art expert has declared it to be genuine partly because the word “Paloma” is written on the back in a script which, though faint, is unmistakably Picasso’s.
The businessman has been charged with fraud and has not been named. Meanwhile, the sculpture will be taken to Maccagno, the town on Lake Maggiore where Parisi was born. It will go on permanent display at Maccagno’s Civico Museo Parisi Valle where, appropriately there is a retrospective exhibition of Parisi’s work until 10th February.
Have you ever found a treasure in a shoebox?
What legal penalty do you think the businessman should pay?
