Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress

This painting, which was sold in auction as “German, Early 19th Century” has gone from being worth $19,000 to millions overnight. The new owner who won it decided to give the painting a thorough checkup, whereupon a fingerprint was found. It matched another found on a confirmed da Vinci portrait.

Peter Silverman, the Canadian-born owner, thought there was more to it and decided to get the drawing checked out after buying it in 2007.

His hunch appears to have paid off…

A Paris laboratory discovered that a fingerprint from the tip of an index or middle-finger, found on the top left of the picture, was “highly comparable” to one found on da Vinci’s work St Jerome, which he painted early in his career when he did not have assistants, according to the Antiques Trade Gazette.

The portrait is due to go on display in an exhibition in Sweden next year.

Link

via Neatorama