Italian police are trying to establish the true owner of a Picasso painting worth €15 m (£11m) after confiscating it from a pensioner who says he was given it for free.

The Rome resident, a former frame-maker, told detectives he received the work in 1978 as a thank-you gift for an act of kindness towards a recently bereaved customer.

A widower had come into his shop in a state of distress after breaking a photo frame in which he kept a picture of his late wife. Touched, the frame-maker replaced the glass for free.