Da Vinci Drawing Discovered Value at $147 Million

The Antique Trade Gazatte is reporting that a work sold at Christie's during the 1990's for $19,000.00 is now in fact considered by many to be a true Leonardo Da Vinci pen and chalk drawing on vellum. The painting had a German early 19th century attribution.  Forensics have played a large role in the authentication and forensic processes, with a fingerprint on the painting matching one in the Vatican known to be Da Vinci's. Many Da Vinci scholars are now agreeing with the new findings. As a Da Vinci the painting could be worth $147 million

The Antique Trade Gazatte article is very interesting and delves into a fair amount of authentication issues.  It is worth reading.

Professor Kemp’s assertion is backed by scientific evidence obtained by the revolutionary “multispectral” camera pioneered by Lumière Technology of Paris.

Peter Paul Biro, the Montreal-based forensic art expert, examined the multispectral images and found a fingerprint near the top left of the work, corresponding to the tip of the index or middle-finger, and “highly comparable” to a fingerprint on Leonardo’s St Jerome in the Vatican (which, stresses Biro, is an early work from a time when Leonardo is not known to have employed assistants).

A palm-print in the chalk on the sitter’s neck “is also consistent in application to Leonardo’s use of his hands in creating texture and shading”, adds Biro, who is credited with pioneering fingerprint studies to help resolve authentication and attribution issues of works of art.

The Lumière camera has already been used to analyse Leonardo’s Mona Lisa and Lady with an Ermine; by the Kröller-Müller, Van Gogh and Cleveland Art Museums; and by the Art Institute of Chicago.

Multispectral analysis reveals each successive layer of colour, and enables the pigments and pigment mixtures of each pixel to be identified without taking physical samples.

For the vellum portrait, Lumière have been able to establish the composition of the materials used in both the original drawing and the restoration. It transpires, for instance, that the green of the girl’s costume was obtained by applying progressive strokes of black chalk to the yellowish surface of the vellum.

Lumière have identified the chalk as amphelite, a fine-grained black argillite (clay slate). Meanwhile flesh tints, and the amber tone of the iris, were achieved by leaving the vellum uncovered.

To read the full article click HERE.