An Italian cleaning firm said its insurance will cover the loss of contemporary artworks mistakenly taken for trash and tossed out at a gallery.

Lorenzo Roca of cleaning firm Chiarissima said an employee was "just doing her job" when she mistook Sala Murat's artwork made from newspaper, cardboard and cookie pieces for trash left behind by workers at the Mediating Landscape exhibition in Bari on Wednesday.

Roca said the company's insurance will cover the estimated $13,722 value of the lost art. Security arriving for duty noticed the works were missing, the BBC reported Friday.

"It's clear the cleaning person did not realize she had thrown away two works and their value," city marketing commissioner Antonio Maria Vasile said.

UPI