Posted on 04/03/2009 2:40:54 PM PDT by JoeProBono
A medieval historian in Italy found what is believed to be a portrait, hidden beneath another painting, of Leonardo da Vinci.
Even the one painting supposedly his
here in the US is disputed.
Interesting.
ML/NJ
To the posters of posts 2, 3, & 4 - thank you. This is why I click on news stories of this type.
p
The original: the painting by Marinus Koekkoek, where three figures are shown on the path, another heading for the bridge, and a lamb is standing by the stream.
The forgery: in the painting put up for auction as the work of Ivan Shishkin, the figures and the lamb have gone, and a signature has appeared where before there was none.
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The embarrassing part is, it was *hanging* behind the other painting -- which means no one had dusted in years. |
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It has been very thoroughly studied, chemically, and with radar and infrared. They have even found LDV's fingerprint in the paint. It is now undisputed. Moreover, after spending many hours staring at it over many years I can assure you that it is a remarkable masterpiece. There is a certain compositional arrangement that gives it the classic mark of a genius, but I have never seen it commented upon. Moreoever, if you look carefully at the control of color and tone on the face, the incredibly subtle shadow, and the shear fabric at her throat, there can be no question of the mastery with which this is painted.
It is like one of those Shakesperian authorship problems. If it is not by Da Vinci, then there must have been a second genius of his stature.
You may know more about this than I do, but even the folks at NGA as recently as last summer, which was the last time I was standing by the painting, acknowledge that some dispute whether it is da Vinci's. I certainly lack any expertise to tell. The arguments you make (mostly) are the ones the NGA folks make as they claim it is a da Vinci. I would note that Wiki (not always the greatest authority, but it's handy) says that Ginevra de' Benci is "attributed" to da Vinci while the Mona Lisa was "painted" by da Vinci.
ML/NJ
The exact words are that it is one of 17 paintings attributed to LDV. BTW, for the most part there is nothing wrong with wiki articles, so long as you stay away from political controversy. In fields where I know deeply about the subject the articles are clearly written by well established experts in the field.
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