About La Bella Principessa
This little portrait made big news on October 13, 2009 when Leonardo experts confidently attributed it to the Florentine Master based on forensic evidence.
Previously known as either Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress or Profile of a Young Fiancée, and catalogued as "German school, early 19th Century," the mixed media on vellum drawing, backed with an oak panel, was sold at auction for $19K (US) in 1998, and resold for approximately the same amount in 2007. The buyer was Canadian collector Peter Silverman, who was himself acting on behalf of an anonymous Swiss collector. And then the real fun started because Silverman had bid on this drawing at the 1998 auction suspecting, even then, that it had been misattributed.
Why Is It Now Attributed to Leonardo?
Dr. Nicholas Turner, former Keeper of Prints & Drawings at the British Museum and an acquaintance of Silverman's, brought the drawing to the attention of leading Leonardo experts Drs. Martin Kemp and Carlo Pedretti, among others. The professors felt there was evidence that this was an uncatalogued Leonardo for the following reasons:
- The artist was left-handed.
- The perspective is flawless.
- The knots on the shoulder of the sitter's dress and the braiding in her headdress/hairdo are Leonardesque.
- It is Tuscan in overall style, though finishing details are Milanese.
- Leonardo had been quizzing a traveling French artist about the use of colored chalk on vellum at the time.
However, "new" Leonardos demand conclusive proof. To this end, the drawing was sent to the Lumiere Technology lab for advanced multispectral scanning. Lo, a fingerprint emerged that was "highly comparable" to a fingerprint on Leonardo's St Jerome (ca. 1481-82), notably executed at a time that the artist worked alone. A further partial palm print was later detected.
The Model
The young sitter is presently presumed by experts to be a member of the Sforza family, although neither the Sforza colors nor symbols are evident. She may be Bianca Sforza (1482-1496; daughter of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan [1452-1508], and his mistress Bernardina de Corradis). Bianca had been married in 1489 to a distant relative of her father's but, because she was seven years old at the time, remained in Milan until 1496.
Conversely, we may be looking at her cousin Bianca Maria Sforza (1472-1510; daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan [1444-1476], and his second wife, Bona of Savoy). Bianca Maria was older, legitimate and became Holy Roman Empress in 1494 as the second wife of Maximilian I.
Technique
The original drawing was executed on vellum using pen and ink, and a combination of black, red and white chalks. The yellow color of the vellum lent itself well to creating skin tones, and combining with carefully applied black and red chalk for green and brown tones, respectively.
Current Valuation
Its value has leapt from the approximate $19K (US) purchase price to a Leonardo-worthy $150 million.
