PAINT SOB: Linda Falcetti and Dominick Schifano with a copy of theirprized portrait. (Angel Chevrestt)
PAINT SOB: Linda Falcetti and Dominick Schifano with a copy of theirprized portrait.
A New York family that entrusted a centuries-old painting to a Connecticut consignment shop — only to be told it was “worthless” and had been “given to charity” without their knowledge — was outraged to see the artwork up for auction last month at Christie’s, with a $40,000 price tag.
“We couldn’t believe it — in a split second, I looked at it and knew it was mine,” Yonkers resident Dominick Schifano, 52, told The Post.
Schifano and his sister, Linda Falcetti, 55, said they’d been looking for the painting — a copy of “La Belle Forronniere” that’s said to be the work of a Leonardo da Vinci protégé — for more than a year.
The last time anyone in the family saw it was in 2004, when an elderly aunt placed it, along with other art pieces, with Kenneth O’Keefe, owner of Greenwich Antiques and Consignment.
When Falcetti tried to check on the painting in 2009, she learned O’Keefe had gone out of business. When she tracked him down, the dealer said he’d cleaned out his warehouse and given everything to charity. “I said, ‘You can’t just do that’ and he said, ‘Well, I did,’ ” Falcetti said.
But O’Keefe told a Post reporter he’d given the artwork to an upstate auction house.
“It was a fake; it was garbage. All the stuff was garbage; nobody wanted it,” O’Keefe said.
After being alerted that the artwork’s ownership was in question, Christie’s took it off the block.
The piece had been expected to go for between $40,000 and $50,000.
The painting was offered for sale by someone who had reportedly bought it for $6,500 and put another $1,500 into restoring it. The seller — who has not been identified — had no idea there might be an ownership dispute, according to Schifano and Falcetti.
After learning their painting had vanished, the siblings enlisted police, the FBI and a lawyer to help find it.
The piece was also entered in the Art Loss Register, which tracks missing works — and that ended up leading to the Christie’s auction.
The portrait, painted on wood, had been purchased by Schifano’s grandfather during the Depression.
Family photos of the painting match the one at the auction house — except for some restorative work, Schifano said.
But the family, which doesn’t have a receipt for the paintings that were given to O’Keefe, will have to produce other documentation to show the artwork is the one they’ve lost.
“We’re in limbo right now,” said Falcetti. “I feel helpless.”