La Bella Principessa: a £100m Leonardo, or a copy?
La Bella Principessa has been touted as Leonardo’s missing masterpiece, but the experts beg to differ.
'Picture kept in a drawer 'is £100m da Vinci’.” That’s how the article in The Sunday Times on July 27, 2008 breathlessly reported the incredible story of how the Paris-based American dealer Peter Silverman discovered a lost masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci.
Silverman’s discovery made a thrilling story, but it was a complete fabrication, and the first of several versions of the story he told. In fact, New York art dealer Kate Ganz acquired the drawing at Christie’s in 1998 for $21,850 catalogued as “19th century, possibly German” and she sold it, with the same attribution and for the same amount, nine years later to Silverman. During the time she owned it, the many museum curators, museum directors, conservators and collectors who saw it in her gallery all concurred that the drawing could not be more than 100 years old. As for the “L-word” Mr Silverman dared not utter, when he saw the picture at Ganz’s gallery in January 2007 it was described on the label as “obviously based on a number of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci”.
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
'Picture kept in a drawer 'is £100m da Vinci’.” That’s how the article in The Sunday Times on July 27, 2008 breathlessly reported the incredible story of how the Paris-based American dealer Peter Silverman discovered a lost masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci.
Silverman’s discovery made a thrilling story, but it was a complete fabrication, and the first of several versions of the story he told. In fact, New York art dealer Kate Ganz acquired the drawing at Christie’s in 1998 for $21,850 catalogued as “19th century, possibly German” and she sold it, with the same attribution and for the same amount, nine years later to Silverman. During the time she owned it, the many museum curators, museum directors, conservators and collectors who saw it in her gallery all concurred that the drawing could not be more than 100 years old. As for the “L-word” Mr Silverman dared not utter, when he saw the picture at Ganz’s gallery in January 2007 it was described on the label as “obviously based on a number of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci”.
A campaign is under way to publicise what Kemp is calling “the most important rediscovered work by the artist in over a century”. As part of the promotional drive, the drawing is being shown to the public for the first time – not, as you might expect, in a museum in Paris, New York or London – but in a conference centre in Gothenburg, Sweden. Watching the opening on YouTube is like watching the circus come to town. The picture arrives in an armoured van under police escort. Flashbulbs pop. A man who is handcuffed to a metal briefcase opens it with a theatrical flourish and then produces the drawing that Silverman (or the “Swiss collector” he still claims owns the work) is now saying is worth $150?million.