A rare Pablo Picasso "gemmaux," a fired-glass artwork, recently unearthed by a museum in Evansville, Ind., will be offered for private sale. New York auctioneer Guernsey's reporteldy has fielded some inquiries on the piece.

Arlan Ettinger, of Guernsey's, instigated the Evansville Museum's search for the long-lost artwork in its storage after his reasearch for a client led him to call the institution.

After more than four decades in storage, Picasso's "Femme Assise au Chapeau Rouge" ("Seated Woman with Red Hat") was found in a shipping crate. Museum officials decided in August to de-accession the work since the insurance and security costs would be a hardship for the small museum.

Estimates for the work have been as high as $40 million, while the value is half that much say some experts, according to reports. Yet, a value is hard to determine since a similar work has not sold recently.

A mystery is emerging about how the artwork ended up in museum storage. Industrial designer Raymond Loewy was the buyer of the artwork in the 1950s and gave it the museum in 1963. Apparently, a staffer mislabeled the work as by "Gemmaux."