Leonardo's Lost Princess: One Man's Quest to Authenticate an Unknown Portrait by Leonardo Da Vinci

by Peter Silverman; Catherine Whitney

Madame Jeanne Marchig was eighty-four, but age had not stilled the passion this Swiss woman felt for animal rescue. It was her life’s work, memorialized in the Marchig Animal Welfare Trust, which was established in 1989 in memory of her late husband, the painter Giannino Marchig. Everything she did was focused on expanding and bettering the trust.1

  As I traveled to see Jeanne in early 2010, I reflected on how strange it was that circumstances would bring the two of us together. I had always been a fierce animal lover. However, it was art, not animals, that the widow Marchig and I had in common.

  When the news about La Bella Principessa hit the airwaves, Jeanne was stunned to see a face she was intimately familiar with. After all, the portrait of the young woman had been in her possession for fifty years. It was she who had turned it over to Christie’s for evaluation and sale. And it was she who now felt betrayed.

  In 1955, when Jeanne married Giannino Marchig, he owned the pen-and-ink drawing with pastel highlights on vellum, and she was quite drawn to it. The profile of a young woman was exquisitely done, and it was one of her favorite works. Although unfortunately her husband never revealed how he had come to possess the painting—thus leaving the provenance uncertain—Giannino, a well-known art restorer with considerable expertise in Renaissance art, told her he was confident that it was a fifteenth-century Master drawing. He believed it to be a work of Domenico Ghirlandaio (a teacher of Michelangelo’s), dating from the fifteenth century. Ghirlandaio and Leonardo apprenticed at the same time, both under Andrea del Verrocchio, and certain similarities in style have often been noted. I too had originally guessed it might be a Ghirlandaio, before the left-handed shading was pointed out to me. Ghirlandaio was not left-handed.

  Giannino Marchig’s story was somewhat remarkable. Before World War II, he had become acquainted with none other than the great Renaissance connoisseur Bernard Berenson (whom you may recall from the tale of the Hahn lawsuit in chapter 4). Berenson lived in a large estate just outside Florence, where he housed a substantial art collection. Giannino visited him there on many occasions, and the two men became friends. (The site is now the Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies, housing Berenson’s art collection and library.)

  Giannino restored many of Berenson’s paintings, but he performed a larger service when the Nazis came into power. Berenson chose to remain in his Tuscan home, ’I Tatti, during the war. Fearing that Berenson’s collection would be stolen by the Nazis, Giannino arranged to evacuate his most important pictures and documents.2 Could La Bella Principessa have been one of them? Martin and I extensively searched the Berenson archives at ’I Tatti. Unfortunately, we found no reference to La Bella Principessa, so we may never know for certain.

  Contemplating these events, I wondered if, had he seen La Bella Principessa, it was possible that the great Berenson did not recognize the hand of Leonardo in the drawing. Perhaps not, but when one considers how far we have come in understanding Leonardo in the past sixty years, it would not surprise me. Lady with an Ermine, La Belle Ferronnière, and Ginevra Benci were not universally accepted as Leonardo’s works in Berenson’s day. Furthermore, many works previously attributed to Leonardo were later shown to be not his after all. I myself own a major monograph on Leonardo, published in the 1960s, that includes drawings attributed to Leonardo that are clearly by right-handed artists. So it is conceivable that Berenson might not have recognized the portrait as Leonardo’s. Berenson might have passed on a correct attribution for La Bella Principessa because, like others after him, he had no point of comparison in another work by Leonardo on vellum. And although he was capable of “feeling art with his whole being”—according to Meryle Secrest, author of Being Bernard Berenson—perhaps his intellect got the better of his intuition in this case.3

  Jeanne Marchig confided to the journalist Simon Hewitt that “it is certainly conceivable that La Bella Principessa may at one time have been in the possession of Bernard Berenson”—because the men were so close and her husband had saved Berenson’s art collection during the war.

  Giannino lovingly restored the portrait on at least one occasion, using pastels produced by Lefranc of Paris. Jeanne still has the boxes the pastels came in. The restoration was so masterful that the Louvre restorer Catherine Corrigan, the first to examine La Bella Principessa under a microscope, stated that she would not recommend further restoration or attempt it herself—a tribute to Giannino’s talent and Corrigan’s integrity.

  Giannino Marchig died in 1983 at the age of eighty-five. Although the portrait had not been on display during his lifetime—he had not wanted to expose it to the light—Jeanne took it out after his death and hung it in a dimly lit corner of the house so she could enjoy it.

  Many years after her husband’s death, looking to raise money for her wildlife trust, Jeanne presented the portrait to Christie’s for evaluation and possible auction. She and Giannino had had a long-standing relationship with Christie’s, and it didn’t occur to her that she would be led astray. Indeed, the Marchigs were regular clients of Christie’s and had consigned many works over the years. After her husband’s death, Jeanne continued the relationship, consigning major works from Renaissance Florence, including Piero di Cosimo’s 1499 Jason & Queen Hippolyte with the Women of Lemnos, sold at Christie’s London for £200,000 in July 2007, and a paneled Portrait of a Young Gentleman (ca.1505) by Giuliano Bugiardini (who apprenticed under Ghirlandaio); though long attributed to Raphael, it fetched a triple-estimate £700,000 in London in July 2009. Both works were sold to aid the Marchig Trust.

  When Jeanne decided to sell the portrait, she told Fran¸ois Borne, Christie’s resident expert for Old Master drawings, about her husband’s belief that the work was a fifteenth-century piece, perhaps by Ghirlandaio. She was quite surprised when after examining the picture for a mere fifteen minutes, Borne summarily rejected the Renaissance provenance.

  Borne wrote to Jeanne saying that he was fascinated by her “superb German drawing in the taste of the Italian Renaissance.” He suggested that it would sell at an auction for between $12,000 and $15,000. He also wrote, “I would be tempted to change the frame in order to make it seem an amateur object of the 19th century and not an Italian pastiche.” Although Jeanne did not agree to change the frame, Christie’s removed it without her knowledge and sold the portrait unframed. (She never received the original Italian frame back.)

  Jeanne was disappointed in Christie’s judgment, but she trusted Borne completely. She and Giannino had always been happy working with Christie’s, and without her husband by her side, she did not want to rock the boat. Besides, she was extremely vulnerable at the time, suffering from what she calls “a deep depression,” and she felt pressured by Borne into accepting his judgment in spite of her reluctance. She was devastated when she learned that major authorities were now calling her portrait a work of Leonardo da Vinci.

  I found the changing of the frame particularly curious, so I consulted a friend—a major dealer in Old Masters—about frames and their importance. He suggested that had La Bella Principessa been presented at the auction in a Renaissance frame, potential buyers would have viewed the portrait in a different light, as possibly older than nineteenth century. Perhaps Christie’s changed the frame to conform with Borne’s opinion. My source told me that it is highly irregular for auction houses to change frames on pictures consigned by clients in this way.

  As soon as I found out that La Bella Principessa was a Leonardo, I decided that Christie’s should be informed. I contacted Noël Annesley, international head of Christie’s Old Masters department. I had known him for over thirty years and bought many wonderful paintings and drawings at Christie’s, where he was both expert and auctioneer. He was quite courteous and willing to hear me out. I told him, “I believe I have discovered a Leonardo da Vinci that was sold at auction in 1998 as the work of an unknown nineteenth-century artist. It’s going to come out, and I’m giving you a heads-up.” I added, “Instead of your making a double mistake, I invite you to come to Zuri
ch and view the portrait and then admit you made an error.”

  To Annesley’s credit, he agreed to travel to Zurich, accompanied by the director from Paris. Good for them. Unfortunately, they didn’t take my advice and consider how they might turn a bad situation into a positive. Instead, on his return from Zurich, Annesley called Jeanne.

  “Mrs. Marchig,” he told her, “I’m afraid you’re in for a bit of a shock. Please be prepared for the news coming out that the drawing we sold for you is being claimed as a Leonardo. We assure you that we don’t believe this is true, but we want you to be prepared.”

  Jeanne did not take kindly to this news. She immediately contacted Martin and asked if he could see her. Sitting across from Jeanne, Martin was struck by the seriousness of the matter. He recognized her as a savvy art lover, and he was distressed that this had happened to her. He gladly walked her through the evidence, and he watched the expression on her face change from mild concern to alarm.

  After her meeting with Martin, Jeanne knew she had to act. She was not willing to just lie down and accept the error. She wanted compensation—not a lot, as she explained to Annesley. She was not greedy. She certainly didn’t need the money for herself. She was eighty-four and childless and a wealthy woman. But she thought it was appropriate that Christie’s give her something for her animal welfare trust. She described it as a “gesture.” (What that “gesture” meant I can only speculate. Perhaps $3 to $5 million.)

  Jeanne told Annesley that she hoped they could resolve the matter amicably, and he concurred that he shared that desire. But time ticked on and there was no action. Eventually, Jeanne received a communication from Sandra Cobden, Christie’s senior counsel and head of dispute resolution, who restated the company’s confidence that the matter could be resolved amicably—but she ominously added, “One of the things I find most interesting is how many experts have decided to stand on the sidelines.” Then, switching gears, Cobden wrote about her family’s four rescued cats and burbled about the good work Jeanne’s trust performed. Jeanne was not amused. She was expecting action, and she was getting more stalling. She told Hewitt that she thought Christie’s might be “playing for time, hoping [she’d] die.”

  Finally, Jeanne got fed up and called a lawyer. By the time she contacted Richard Altman, a notable art lawyer in New York, she had worked herself into a lather. She was angry at Christie’s officious attitude. She believed she’d been wronged. Altman was a lawyer of long experience. When I later met him, I found him to be a mensch as well. He was a perfect choice for Jeanne.

  On May 3, 2010, Jeanne’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, for an undetermined amount. The suit alleged, “The drawing sold at a price far below its actual value, solely because of defendant’s willful refusal and failure to investigate plaintiffs’ believed attribution, to comply with its fiduciary obligations to plaintiffs, its negligence, its breach of warrant to attribute the drawing correctly, and its making of false statements in connection with the auction and sale.”4

  There were several compelling aspects to Jeanne’s lawsuit. The first was a claim of breach of fiduciary duty. She charged that Christie’s had failed to investigate whether the drawing could have been attributed to an Italian Renaissance artist. It did not take the most fundamental steps of investigating the age of the drawing using carbon dating or use other routine methods of analysis and connoisseurship. Had Borne taken Jeanne’s suggested attribution seriously, it was likely that the drawing would have at least been identified as a fifteenth-century Italian drawing valued far in excess of $22,000, regardless of the artist to whom it was attributed. Submitting the work, as I did at the outset, to a specialist restorer would have most certainly indicated that it was fifteenth century.

  Jeanne also had a claim of negligence. Christie’s, she contended, failed to exercise due care and act as a reasonably prudent expert. Jeanne also claimed that Christie’s fiduciary relationship with her gave rise to a special bond of trust and confidence sufficient to sustain a claim of negligent misrepresentation. That is, Jeanne believed that Christie’s knew she required accurate information in order to sell the drawing at the highest possible price and that she intended to rely on Christie’s opinion of its attribution.

  Would Jeanne’s lawsuit have any chance of succeeding? One issue was whether there was a statute of limitations. This was potentially an insurmountable barrier. However, since Jeanne had an ongoing working relationship with Christie’s, she could make the argument that the statute of limitations did not apply.

  A month after the lawsuit was filed, Jeanne heard from Cobden, who told her that Christie’s had reexamined the portrait and “to be blunt . . . the painting simply [did] not appear to [their] eyes to be a work by Leonardo da Vinci.” No surprise there. Cobden’s reasoning was that there was a heavy layer of what seemed to be shellac on the surface, “which obscures many of the painting’s details.”

  When Hewitt was researching the story for the Antique Trade Gazette, he asked Pascal to comment on Cobden’s statement about the shellac, since Pascal had already completed his thorough examination of the portrait. Pascal told him that the substance was not shellac but a covering of gum arabic that was laid to protect the painting, and it wasn’t accurate to say that it was heavy. Pascal added that even though it may seem to obscure the view if one is looking with the naked eye, the multispectral camera easily saw through the layer.

  Cobden also struck a low blow, claiming that the Leonardo attribution was invalidated because “most of the proponents of the new attribution have a significant financial stake in their conclusion: Luminere [sic] Technology is struggling to get a firm financial footing for its company and its product; Silverman is seeking to increase his investment in the painting as well as to publish his book on the topic; one of the experts on whom Silverman relies . . . are [sic] connected to the book publication project or other publicity projects.”

  But Cobden’s most interesting assertion was that even if the portrait were a Leonardo, Christie’s would still be off the hook, because the discovery was based on Lumiere Technology’s work. “An auction house is not legally liable for any change in attribution that is based on new technology that was not available at the time the original attribution was made.”

  After Jeanne’s lawsuit was filed, I made a trip to see her. We spent a lovely afternoon together. She showed me her husband’s paintings, which were quite good and hung throughout the house. She also spoke passionately about her animal welfare trust, and I was fascinated with the details. In all, I thought she was a youthful, intelligent, and genuine woman.

  As we sat drinking tea, Jeanne smiled at me warmly and said, “Peter, you’re very rich. Will you give something to my animals?”

  I laughed. “Well, I may someday be very rich, but right now I’m not swimming in funds. You know, all of this has cost me a lot of money.”

  Still, I was interested in hearing what she wanted, because an idea was forming in my mind that perhaps we could make an arrangement. She told me she would be satisfied with 1 percent of a sale, were it to happen.

  I told her how Kathy and I had imagined using the money, if it ever came. One of our charitable interests was animal rights, and I was impressed with how well run Jeanne’s trust was. “I will give your charity a healthy donation from the proceeds,” I told her.

  I felt good about my offer because not only was the cause a good one, it also might give Jeanne some small justice. She felt betrayed. She acknowledged what I had suspected: she never would have filed a lawsuit at all had Christie’s handled her concerns with more sensitivity. She didn’t care about money for money’s sake or about some vague calculation of “worth.” Her sole interest was for her animals, and she and I saw eye to eye on that.

  On November 12, 2010, Jeanne’s lawyer, Richard Altman, participated in a panel at the New York University Law Day on “Expert Opinions and Liabilities.” The program was attended by about two hundred people, most of
whom were appraisers. Altman gave a half-hour presentation, describing Jeanne Marchig’s complaint and the legal theories involved. Since the case was ongoing, he chose his words with care, and there were some details he couldn’t give. It was a workmanlike performance before professionals. He truthfully stressed that there had been no discovery (pretrial disclosure of pertinent facts or documents by the parties involved) yet in the case, so it was basically only allegations at that point.

  But suddenly, just as the program was about to wrap up, a woman in the audience bounded out of her seat and said loudly that she wanted to make a statement. She identified herself as Sandra Cobden—yes, Christie’s senior counsel with the four rescued cats. Altman was taken aback, to say the least. For a Christie’s representative to make a statement in this setting was quite surprising. Cobden’s demeanor was angry, and she was nearly shaking as she accused Altman of getting the facts completely wrong. She didn’t say anything of substance, but she seemed to have a strong personal reaction, as though she herself had been attacked.

  When Altman saw Cobden later in the day, she still appeared angry, and he thought the whole thing was peculiar. A number of people came up to him in the course of the day and said that they thought Cobden had embarrassed herself by making a statement on behalf of Christie’s in that room. Altman tended to agree, but in describing the incident to me, he added, “It also became clear to me that a room full of appraisers was not really pleased about the case, because it had the potential as a precedent to expose them to liability in the future for making erroneous attributions. But I said that if they wanted to truly be considered professionals, they would have to be as responsible for their actions and opinions as doctors and lawyers.”

  The case attracted the attention of the legal community as well as that of the art community. Writing for Art Law, Judith Bresler, an expert on both specialties, opined,

  The Marchig v. Christie’s decision could have far-reaching implications in terms of the duties owed by an