ROME (AP) – It’s a story almost too fantastical to be true: A flea market dealer finds a painting near a subway trash bin, submits it to laboratory analysis and emerges convinced he has a Modigliani on his hands.
No one would believe it, given the modernist master is one of the most sought-after and forged artists around.
But a public relations firm in Rome that doubles as the Amedeo Modigliani Institute is claiming a signed portrait of “Odette” could be a real deal. It’s putting the work on public view next week saying it hopes to start an academic debate on its authenticity.
“I assure you, this isn’t a fake and we are dealing with a discovery,” insisted Luciano Renzi, the institute’s president and head of an eponymous publicity firm. While acknowledging that experts must make such a certification, he said he wouldn’t put it up to critical review “if the institute didn’t firmly believe it.”
However, the institute has no role or expertise in authenticating Modigliani works, has a financial interest in drumming up publicity for its exhibit, and even the lab it hired refuses to date the painting.