Someone found a Picasso painting in their great aunt's closet that had been there for 50 years
· Jul 15, 2021 · NottheBee.com

It's fitting: a bizarre story to match the bizarre art style of Picasso.

Someone discovered a painting by the great Pablo Picasso in their great aunt's old closet. How did that get there?

"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," a statement from the seller 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 piece measures only 16 x 16 inches (40 x 40 centimeter), but it's worth $150,000! Le Tricorne is "believed to be a study for the stage curtain Picasso painted for a ballet of the same name that debuted that year in London."

"[The ballet] premiered on July 22, 1919, at the Alhambra Theatre in London with sets, costume designs, and the monumental stage curtain created by Picasso," New-York Historical Society said. "Picasso biographer John Richardson once called 'Le Tricorne' the artist's 'supreme theatrical achievement.'"

That's pretty neat. Some ballet company back in the day asked this living legend artist at the time (Picasso), "Collab, bro?" And this painting was Picasso's design for what the curtain itself would look like.

Now, fast-forward to the present, and I don't know which is more bizarre.

Is it the fact that this lucky chap's great aunt had a very expensive Picasso painting casually stashed into a closet somewhere? Or is it the fact that nobody searched through the contents of that closet for 50 freaking years?

Why did anyone in this family have the painting in the first if it was just going to end up collecting dust in some closet somewhere? Finally, someone in this family wised up and got some cold-hard, non-abstract CASH for it! Good for them.


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