A painting discovered by a junk dealer in the basement of an Italian villa six decades ago is actually the work of Pablo Picasso and could sell for millions, according to experts.

The painting hanging in the living room had been the subject of years of controversy in the Lo Rosso family. It turned out to be signed by Pablo Picasso. In 1962, Luigi Lo Rosso was searching the basement of a house on the Italian island of Capri.

The portrait featured the famous artist’s signature in the top left-hand corner. But the owner had no idea who he was.

For more than 50 years, a family in Pompeii kept a real treasure inside their home without having any idea about its worth. The canvas, found in the 1960s by a junk dealer, hung in their living room before they discovered it was a masterpiece by Picasso,

A painting that was nearly thrown away by an Italian family for being "horrible" has been identified as a Picasso, but is it real?

Luigi Lo Rosso found the painting in 1962 and hung it in a cheap frame at his home in Pompeii for many decades.

As a young man, Luigi Lo Rosso used to scour garbage dumps and abandoned homes in Italy for items to sell at his family's shop in Pompeii. In 1962, he was poking around the basement of a Capri villa when he came across a rolled-up canvas.

A painting discovered by a junk dealer while cleaning out the cellar of a home in Capri, Italy, may be an authentic Picasso work. Luigi Lo Rosso came across the painting in 1962, when he brought the rolled canvas home with him to Pompeii and hung it in a cheap frame on the wall.

The painting hanging in the living room was the subject of many years of controversy in the Lo Rosso family. It turned out to be signed by Pablo Picasso. In 1962, Luigi Lo Rosso was searching the basement of a house on the Italian island of Capri.