Found in the basement of a Benedictine monastery in Liguria in 2012, Carlo Alcite’s (c. 1610, Genoa) work is, quite simply, the most exciting art-historical discovery of the 21st century. Richard Weston explores Alcite’s atmospheric work as a watercolourist; and how his output has led scholars to see him as a ‘proto-Surrealist’ / pioneer of abstraction.