(Oct. 12) -- A fingerprint found on an obscure portrait that sold recently for $19,000 reveals that the drawing is almost certainly a previously unrecognized work by Leonardo da Vinci worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
"Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress" is a 13-by-9 inch portrait done in chalk, pen and ink on vellum and mounted on an oak board. When it was sold at auction by Christie's in New York in 1998, it was cataloged as "German school, early 19th century."
Skip over this content
http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlpublisher/fetch.v2.xml?option=expand_relative_urls&dataUrlNodes=uiConfig,feedConfig,entry&id=507641&pid=507640&uts=1255393043
http://cdn.channel.aol.com/cs_feed_v1_6/csfeedwrapper.swf
Da Vinci Discoveries
This portrait, "Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress," was once attributed to an anonymous German artist of the early 19th century. But a fingerprint revealed by multispectral photography indicates it is almost certainly the work of Leonardo da Vinci, scholars said Monday.
Alessandro Vezzosi, Museo Ideale Leonardo Da Vinci, AP
Alessandro Vezzosi, Museo Ideale Leonardo Da Vinci, AP
But Peter Silverman, who acquired it in 2007, thought the work must have been done earlier than the 1800s. He decided to have it examined more closely.
Images of the portrait taken by a "multispectral" camera were examined by forensic art expert Peter Paul Biro, who found a fingerprint near the top left of the work,
Antiques Trade Gazette reported.
That fingerprint is "highly comparable" to one discovered earlier on da Vinci's "St. Jerome," housed in the Vatican, ATG said.
Art scholars said "St. Jerome" is an early da Vinci work, done at a time when the Renaissance genius did not use assistants. So it would seem that the fingerprint on that work -- and thus on "Young Girl" as well -- had to have been made by da Vinci himself.
Carbon-14 analysis of the vellum gave a date range of 1440 to 1650, ATG said. Da Vinci lived from 1452-1519.
Martin Kempis, emeritus professor of history of art at the University of Oxford in England, believes the work is a genuine da Vinci. He thinks it may be a portrait of Bianca Sforza, daughter of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan.
If confirmed, this would be the first major da Vinci work identified in 100 years, said Professor Carlo Pedretti, head of the Fondazione Pedretti for da Vinci studies.
"This could be the most important discovery since the early 19th century re-establishment of the 'Lady with the Ermine' as a genuine Leonardo," he told ATG.
Skip over this content
