For a few thousand euros, he had bought at an auction a painting that could now instead be worth millions. The canvas, in fact, is allegedly by Claude Monet, master of French Impressionism. The protagonist of the affair, which was reported by the Piacenza daily la Libertà, is a lawyer from the Emilian city, Carlo Romagnoli - a collector and art enthusiast - who bought, a fortnight ago, a 104-by-74.5-centimeter portrait of a little girl that was allegedly painted by the famous transalpine artist and which, according to art critic and expert Vladimir Cicognani, an art appraiser for the Court and the Bologna Chamber of Commerce, is authentic. Already in the past, the Piacenza-based lawyer had snagged an anonymous "Portrait of a Young Woman" at an auction that turned out, after ten years of study and expert examination, to be a work by Amedeo Modigliani.
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