A retired couple in southern France has come forward with 271 previously unknown works by Pablo Picasso, seen in 1946. (George Konig/Keystone Features/Getty Images)A lawyer for the administrator of Pablo Picasso's estate says a retired French electrician and his wife have come forward with 271 undocumented, never-before-seen works by the artist.
The couple for years squirrelled away the staggering trove — which is believed to be authentic — in their garage on the French Riviera, said Picasso Administration lawyer Jean-Jacques Neuer. The vast collection is estimated to be worth at least €60 million (nearly $81 million Cdn), he said on Monday.
The cache, dating from the artist's most creative period from 1900 to 1932, includes lithographs, portraits, watercolours and sketches — plus nine Cubist collages said to be worth €40 million (about $54 million Cdn) alone, according to French daily Liberation, which first reported the discovery on Monday.
Pierre Le Guennec, a 71-year-old former electrician who once worked for Picasso, and his wife showed many of the works to Picasso's son Claude and other estate administrators in Paris in September, seeking to have the works certified as authentic.
Shortly after that meeting, the lawyer filed suit on behalf of Picasso's heirs for alleged illegal receipt of the works — and police investigators are looking into how Le Guennec and his wife, Danielle, came by the pictures.
"This was a gift," Danielle Le Guennec told The Associated Press by phone from their home in the town of Mouans-Sartoux, near the tourist Riviera hotspot of Antibes. "We aren't thieves. We didn't do anything wrong."
Claude Picasso, quoted in Liberation, noted that his father was known for his generosity — but that he always dedicated, dated and signed his gifts, as he knew that some recipients might try to sell the works one day.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/artdesign/story/2010/11/29/picasso-trove-unknown.html#ixzz16kZDrcyz
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