Attributed to Leonardo
da Vinci
Portrait of a Young Woman
Red, black and white chalk on
velum - 23.9 x 33.3 cm
Switzerland,
private collection
Photo : Lumière Technology
21/6/08 — Discovery — Leonardo da Vinci (?) — Next 5 July, Alessandro Vezzosi is publishing a work entitled Leonardo infinito in which he ascribes the Portrait of a Woman on parchment, held in a private Swiss collection, to Leonardo. The attribution is supported—although cautiously—notably by Nicholas Turner (who first suggested it), Carlo Pedretti and Mina Gregori.
Anything dealing with Leonardo should be considered carefully. Over the last few centuries, many works have been attributed to Leonardo and time has not proved all of them to be right. The information is, however, worth noting due to the names of the art historians behind the attribution, among them some of the most renowned specialists on Leonardo [1] or on Italian painting. Everyone can judge for himself thanks to the multispectral digitized technology provided by the company Lumière Technology and available on its website on the case [2]. This is the first time that a study of this kind is available online and will enable anyone not yet familiar with this revolutionary procedure, which we have talked about here several times already [3], to discover it.