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A cleaning woman in southern Italy has unwittingly thrown away contemporary artworks that were supposed to be part of an exhibition.

Lorenzo Roca, head of the cleaning company, said the woman "was just doing her job" when she thought two artworks were part of rubbish left behind by those setting up for the show that opened on Wednesday in Bari.

Show organisers said one of the works she gave to a city sanitation crew before dawn included pieces of cookies, which were scattered on the floor, as part of an artistic arrangement.

Mr Roca said the cleaning company would use its insurance coverage to pay for the trashed art works, whose value was estimated at 10,000 euros ($13,700).

The cleaning woman is not the first person to fail to recognise a piece of contemporary art.

In 2001 a piece of art by Damien Hirst consisting of an ashtray, dirty coffee cups, empty beer bottles and crumpled newspapers was thrown away by cleaners at a London art gallery.

In 1999 Tracey Emin was on the verge of winning the Turner Prize for her conceptual piece "My Bed," when one of the museums's patrons saw the exhibit and, believing that it had been vandalised, straightened it up and made the bed.