Benito

I began writing this blog post in 2010 or 2011. Unfortunately, I didn't finish it and the crescendo of the story has disappeared from my memory banks. I do not know the source of the quoted text below, and I no longer have a complete photo of the painting. My friend ultimately gave the painting back to his former wife, according to the grapevine....



What a magical day of discovery that day was...

A friend of mine bought a painting for $15.00 at an auction quite some years ago. At one point, his wife at the time asked a neighbor, who was having a yard sale, to get rid of it. Heck, she was about to throw it away.

The painting did not sell at the yard sale. It was "just another painting," done on cardboard. My friend told his wife that he wanted the painting, and not to throw it away. The big, brown eyes reminded him of his daughter... so he kept it.

As the years went by, my friend occasionally conducted research, which unveiled to my friend that the artist was extremely well known, but not as an artist. The signature on the piece is "Muvlini" (or so). This is the name used by Benito Mussolini: a schoolteacher, journalist, fascist leader, artist.

In 2001, it came to light that Mussolini married his first wife, Ida Dalser, in 1914. The following year, she gave birth to a boy, Benito Albino, who Mussolini accepted as his own. When he came to power in the years that followed, his wife and the boy became an embarrassment. Mussolini had Ida arrested and committed to an asylum, and Benito was adopted by a former fascist politician from Ida's home town.*

My friend was quite certain that the painting was of a girl, possibly a mistress. I, too, was certain that the beautiful girl in the painting was, indeed, a girl. Pondering the idea of maybe finding a buyer for the painting, we searched for further info about it, and lo and behold, the painting was of a boy...