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

by Peter Silverman; Catherine Whitney

  Charles de Gaulle once asked, “How does one govern a country that makes five hundred cheeses?” In the same spirit, how does one obtain a consensus on an artist like Leonardo when there are scores of self-proclaimed Leonardo experts? One has only to Google “La Bella Principessa” and “Leonardo” to see some of the most far-fetched opinions by these self-styled experts, who are often anonymous, including: “It can’t be by Leonardo because the neck is too long.” Or, “It has never been documented in his body of works.”

  Obviously, there are many who claim expertise and are not competent; this is true in any field. There are also those who are competent but sometimes mistaken; none of us has a perfect score. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinions, but I believe that these should be based on the evidence.

  The controversy surrounding this newly discovered work of Leonardo is of titanic proportions, with far-reaching implications and repercussions for the art world. I am thankful that I came into the arena with more than thirty years of solid experience and important contacts among art experts. Had I been a naive, inexperienced collector, I would have either not entered the debate or thrown in the towel early in the process, and La Bella Principessa might have remained undiscovered for another five hundred years. Instead, I have been able to follow the long path to the Leonardo attribution, sidestepping most of the pitfalls. I am at heart a man of consensus, not confrontation, but I won’t abide laziness, lack of rigor, prejudice, or intellectual turpitude.

  It is an intriguing topic: How can opinion and perceptions differ so widely? There is rarely a major discovery that is uncontroversial in the art world. Many people surely wonder how can there be such extremes of opinion about La Bella Principessa—from “This is a forgery” to “This is a work of sublime beauty by the greatest artist the world has ever known.” In some respects, this was a Herculean battle between, on the one hand, the forces of inertia and reaction (those whose minds are set and closed) and, on the other hand, the forces of openness and curiosity (those who use all of their faculties of connoisseurship, knowledge, emotion, and soul to investigate a work of art).

  One Leonardo da Vinci specialist declared to the press, “It does not look like anything I know of the artist.” I am still puzzled by what she meant. Is this a valid line of reasoning? Is it reasoning at all? Ganz’s argument against a Leonardo attribution was that the portrait wasn’t beautiful enough. So why did she buy it in the first place? Hoving followed with “too sweet.” These are subjective comments and should be considered as such.

  Furthermore, the experts in favor of a Leonardo attribution saw it differently. Leonardo’s greatness was that he followed his own creative genius and was constantly inventing new techniques and methods. He of all people would not have appreciated being placed in such a narrow mold. It raises the question of whether some art experts too slavishly expect artists to conform to a particular style or method; when an artist deviates from the pattern, the close-minded experts do not recognize the artist’s work. Yet it is these deviations that reveal an artist’s genius.

  Those who believe that La Bella Principessa is worthy of Leonardo are generous and often wax poetic. Sir Clifford told me plainly, “I really think and still think that the only artist who could have drawn it was Leonardo. In spite of later strengthening, the graphology seems entirely consistent with the master’s work, and I can think of no artist in the circle of Leonardo who is capable of producing such a consummate image, which is consistent with his paintings and the most finished of his drawings.”

  I asked Clifford why he thought the portrait went totally unrecognized both at Christie’s and during the nine years Kate Ganz had it. This is the biggest sticking point for the naysayers. They simply cannot believe that so many practiced eyes fell upon the portrait with no reaction.

  Clifford admitted that he saw a small image of the drawing when it was offered at Christie’s, and he confessed that “lazily [he] dismissed it as something perhaps created by one of the Nazarenes.” He is therefore understanding and somewhat forgiving of the museum colleagues who didn’t see Leonardo’s hand in the work.

  “Few connoisseurs would dare to give it such an illustrious attribution,” he said. “Too many people approach the attribution of drawings only with their head and not their heart. I have found that knee-jerk reactions of recognition have been the surest way—for me—of arriving at attributions, and for what it is worth, my immediate reaction, which I still hold to (on the basis of photographs), is that the attribution to Leonardo is convincing.”

  “So, why,” I asked him, “have so many of your museum colleagues now come out so violently against the attribution? Most of them have never seen the portrait in reality.”

  He responded carefully but thoroughly. “Of course, I have a great regard for my colleagues in museums,” he replied. “Those who work in print rooms normally have the edge of connoisseurship on those who work in departments of painting. I suspect not so many of them have looked, with real attention, at the graphic works in the original of Leonardo and his followers. I suspect most will watch the pronouncements of one or two of their most distinguished colleagues and then second their observations without really daring to consider the problem themselves.

  “I would particularly listen to those who consistently make new discoveries in the field of graphic art and be much less interested in the observations of those who have never made any discoveries of any consequence. There is a tendency for all of us human beings to reject anything that is new and unfamiliar. This is fundamental to mankind and helps in self-preservation.”

  A close friend of mine, Richard Herner, formerly a director of the prestigious gallery Colaghi on Bond Street in London and a dealer in Old Masters for more than forty years, cautioned me to be careful about criticizing the museum directors. “They are our clients, and we need their goodwill to sell our goods,” he said. He also had a thought-provoking viewpoint on the proper role of museums.

  “In principle, it’s not the prime job of a museum to make discoveries,” he noted. “If certain curators succeed in doing so from time to time, so much the better. Their real purpose is to preserve for future generations the wealth of physical art objects, which have survived through time, and to add to the stock of their artistic heritage with the best means at their disposal. They are not primarily in the business of putting their money on hunches. That is one of the tasks of a dealer in Old Masters but not the only one.

  “Nor is there a universal system of finance covering all museums. Many haven’t the means to take any financial risks, and those funded by the state are constrained by issues of security and accountability. So I don’t think it’s really fair to attack them for being averse to speculation. I would be wary of conflating the need to prove the authenticity of the Leonardo by the accumulation of favorable views and the resistance to criticism from some quarters with a general attack on the culture and scholarship of museum management. It wouldn’t do you any good, even if you won the argument with them. For if they are all so ignorant and averse to risk, why would any of them be willing to perhaps one day purchase the painting by Leonardo? It’s not as if it were their discovery!”

  I appreciated his point, and perhaps I was not being as congenial and politically correct as I might be. But I felt I had to stand my ground. “I have nothing against the good ones who do their jobs,” I told him. “Only against those who make reckless statements that potentially hurt La Bella Principessa and their own reputations.”

  13

  What Constitutes Proof?

  There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.

  —Leonardo da Vinci

  The question “How can you be sure?” was raised over and over. People found it hard to accept that differences of opinion could exist, that there wasn’t an absolute stamp of proof. In asking what constitutes proof, Martin skillfully reinforced his position this way:

  No single piece of evidence prove
s conclusively that the portrait of a woman in profile in colored chalks on vellum was executed by Leonardo da Vinci in the mid-1490s, or that the sitter is Bianca Sforza. Similarly, no single piece of evidence proves that the Mona Lisa in the Louvre is a portrait by Leonardo of Lisa Gherardini (wife of Francesco del Giocondo), which was commenced in 1503 and finished a good deal later. Indeed, at least one other candidate has been promoted as the original Mona Lisa, and there have been many theories about the sitter’s identity. The now secure position of the portrait of Mona Lisa del Giocondo in Leonardo’s body of autograph paintings depends on an accumulation of interlocking reasons, and, not least, on the way that the painting participates actively in how we see Leonardo as a whole. Any important new work, to establish itself, must significantly affect the totality of Leonardo’s surviving legacy over the longer term. With respect to the accumulation of interlocking reasons, we have gathered enough evidence to confirm that La Bella Principessa is indeed by Leonardo. The criteria of style and medium, coupled with the technical examinations, indicate that we are dealing with a work that looks and feels like a Leonardo.1

  Martin and others make a convincing case, but do their premises—no matter how educated they might be—amount to proof in the way we understand the notion? Let’s step back and look at some of the most pointed criticisms.

  The Fine Arts Registry (FAR) launched one of the most thorough critiques of La Bella Principessa and concluded that it could not support the attribution, based on several flaws. Most notably, it lingered on the absence of provenance, the unreliability of carbon testing, and the forensic fingerprint question—all legitimate points but hardly at the heart of connoisseurship.

  Let’s review FAR’s primary critiques. First, the absence of provenance:

  The fact that provenance documentation is almost absent supporting the Da Vinci call leaves the work suspect in terms of who had it, where it came from, and when it was made.2

  Naturally, we always seek provenance and value it highly, but it is common to find gaps—even huge ones—in very old works. In the next chapter, we reveal an astounding discovery that puts the question to rest. In general, though, the argument about the importance of provenance is that forgers use confusion about provenance to their advantage, as van Meegeren certainly did with his phony Vermeers (see chapter 4). But many great attributed works in museums have sketchy provenance—including Lady with an Ermine, whose whereabouts before the late eighteenth century are unknown.

  Claudio Strinati correctly observed, “Although much about La Bella Principessa is affirmed, not all questions can be answered, including where she lay hidden for centuries. This comes as no surprise. Many aspects of the study of Leonardo seem destined to remain unsolved, precisely because scholarship is hampered by the element of mystery that is so typical of great masters. (Indeed, it is that same mysterious dimension that can give rise to such fanciful popular creations as The Da Vinci Code!)”3

  Second, FAR’s critique of the unreliability of carbon testing:

  Using carbon-14 analysis for a piece only 500–600 years old produces less accurate and more unreliable results, and as such cannot predict a particular age or small range of age within the period.

  Carbon-14 analysis, which gives a range of about two hundred years, might not prove that the portrait was drawn in the 1490s—although it doesn’t disprove it, either. However, it does eliminate the possibility that it is a nineteenth-century work, which is how it was catalogued by Christie’s. Once it has been acknowledged that the auction house and its experts got it wrong, the question of authorship begs to be investigated.

  Third, FAR’s critique of the forensic fingerprint question:

  Matching the fingerprint of the present work with a comparable one is problematic since the exemplar used has no chain of custody. It is not even clear if the new print was taken correctly.

  The fingerprint evidence has been the most widely discussed and argued—perhaps because it best captures the public imagination. But to speak of “chain of custody” demonstrates the problem with much of the criticism of the fingerprint evidence: This is not CSI. There are no dead bodies. And no one is at risk of being put to death on the basis of this evidence.

  Fingerprint investigation of art is a fully legitimate pursuit because so many artists do leave prints embedded in their works. It is one more potential piece of a very complex puzzle. As for the controversy surrounding Biro, which was brought to light in the New Yorker article (see chapter 12), it has absolutely nothing to do with La Bella Principessa, because Biro did not discover the print or have possession of the original. His expert opinion was solicited, and he offered a convincing reading.

  Martin echoed this point, saying to me, “I have always placed qualified reliance on the fingerprint within the total spectrum of evidence. It never was the killer evidence, whatever the press wanted to say. The criteria to be applied to analysis of prints—in all works of art, including this one—are not established adequately at this point, and any conclusions are necessarily tentative. Paul [Biro] worked within very clear parameters for us, and there was no financial gain to be made by him through overclaiming.”

  FAR completes its evaluation with this vague and unsatisfying statement: “The above analysis draws the conclusion that the approaches, methods, and standards used to confirm authenticity of the new Da Vinci did not support an authenticity conclusion. This does not mean that the work is in authentic, only that until more research takes place following acceptable standards, methods, and approaches, present assertions of authenticity are questionable.”

  It occurs to me that it doesn’t take much courage or insight to say, basically, “Maybe it is, or maybe it isn’t.” However, I don’t mind in the least that these questions get raised; it’s a critical part of the process of investigating a work. Even Nicholas Turner acknowledged when he first investigated La Bella, “Based on its style and left-handed shading, it can only be one of two things—an original work by Leonardo da Vinci or a copy, pastiche, or fake made to look like an autograph portrait by Leonardo.”4 Turner came down in favor of a Leonardo attribution.

  In his review of the evidence, Strinati stated, “The scientific investigations confirm the date of the portrait and situate its origin in a fairly precise context. The conclusions are supported by the artistic quality of the portrait itself, which is exceptionally high: the tone of the facial expression, the incisive but subtle contours, and the delicate handling are all highly Leonardesque. One senses in the sitter a mixture of melancholy and strength. And, as Kemp fully demonstrates, her beauty transcends the best efforts of the Sforza court poets.”5

  One claim I find inexplicable is the assertion in FAR’s critique that “most if not all of the evidence provided to establish the authenticity of the new ‘Da Vinci’ has emerged from news reporting agencies quoting alleged art experts and the basis for their conclusions.” Although the worldwide media jumped on the story once we made the evidence public, those reports were not in themselves evidence. Unfortunately, this canard—that the whole affair is a media creation—has been repeated in other circles. All I can say in defense of La Bella Principessa is that it did hard time in the laboratory before a single word was breathed to the press. And by the way, the drawing’s status as a media sensation is well deserved.

  In another Fine Arts Registry article, “Getting to the Truth of Authentication,” Theresa Franks wrote, “Visual art is an enigma with no intrinsic value, but tucked within the layers of the mystery that visual art presents is ‘true authentication,’ stripped of all manufacture and pretentiousness, where connoisseurship factors in heavily. It is appreciation, discernment, perceptiveness, taste, and the pure love of fine art objects that the tools of science and forensics, though useful, can never substitute or replicate.”6

  That prim view is all well and good, but it leaves many questions unanswered when connoisseurs disagree. Consider the debate concerning two versions of the painting Virgin and Child by the sixteenth-c
entury Flemish artist Jan Gossaert. Until 1994, there was a consensus that the original was the one in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, and a second work was a copy. But after cleaning the second work and removing varnish and overpainting, the National Gallery in London declared it the original. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York disputed the finding and still considered the Vienna work to be the original and the other to be “a copy after Gossaert.”

  In a 2010 exhibition, the Met showed both works side by side so viewers could make their own judgment. However, a National Gallery exhibition in 2011 will show only the work that the Met judged to be a copy.7 Each museum is defending its own version as being the original, and even with the help of science and technology this one will come down basically to expert opinion and connoisseurship.

  So who is right? Perhaps there is another answer: that Gossaert himself did two versions because he was commissioned by a buyer to do so. I remember in the 1970s and 1980s there was a debate about two versions of a picture by Caravaggio, Boy Bitten by a Lizard. Which was real? My thought at the time was that both versions were by Caravaggio, and I was put down by most of the scholars I talked to. Finally, about ten years ago, experts reached agreement that they were both authentic when they were displayed side by side at the National Gallery. Today one is housed at the National Gallery and the other is at the Longhi Institute in Florence. Since that time, other “second versions” of paintings by Caravaggio have been admitted into the canon, albeit amid great debate.