Il quadro del mercatino
The painting from the flea market
Marta was not was a collector serious. She would go to the flea markets for the pure pleasure of browsing among the old things.
One Saturday morning she found a painting small and anonymous: a background grey with two flowers red at the centre. The seller was asking five euros. She bought it bought without thinking about it too much.
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At home, while she was cleaning the surface with a cloth damp, has noticed something of strange. In one corner of the canvas was showing visible a colour different beneath the layer of paint.
She brought the painting to a restorer in the centre. The man has examined the canvas with care and has said: "Beneath there is a portrait. Someone it has covered with purpose."
Two weeks of work patient have revealed the face of a woman young, with the eyes dark and a half smile barely suggested.
On the back of the canvas there was written a name in pencil: "Elena, 1943."
Marta has not has ever understood who had covered the portrait nor why. But has hung the painting restored in the her living room, where Elena her looks at still today with that same half smile.