Artnet News breaks a little news with the revelation that Tournabuoni has found and documented a major discovery, Lucio Fontana’s Le Jour, which had been sitting in a European collection without documentation. Michele Casamonti brought together various pieces of information to confirm the work:

“I insist,” says Casamonti, “we haven’t found an unknown Fontana in someone’s attic. Each element was known separately.” Fontana’s collaboration with Verheyen was already well documented. Léonore Verheyen, the daughter of Jef Verheyen, knew of the painting, which her father had exhibited as part of a triptych alongside two of his other works in the 1970s. But she had no idea of Le Jour’s current whereabouts. Spurred by the video, the dealer strung the clues together one by one. The Fondazione Lucio Fontana then conducted an extensive analysis of the painting, its materials, signatures, and compared the spaces between the holes in the video and in the actual painting before eventually giving its stamp of approval.

This is a real coup for Tornabuoni Art. Next spring, the gallery will be presenting the piece alongside the video in an exhibition focusing on the artist’s production between the year of his first concetti spaziale, 1950, and his death in 1968. The video will also be included in the major Fontana retrospective opening at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris on April 25, an exhibition for which Tornabuoni Art is one of the main lenders.

Major Unidentified Lucio Fontana Painting Authenticated After Decade of Research (Artnet News)