Lucan portrait of Leonardo da Vinci
Encyclopedia
The Lucan portrait of Leonardo da Vinci is a late 15th - early 16th century portrait of a man that was recently discovered in a cupboard of a private house in Italy. It strongly resembles a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

 held by the Uffizi Gallery and regarded by experts as a forgery. The painting was previously thought by its owners to represent Galileo but on its discovery in 2008 a claim was made that it is a self-portrait by Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

. Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci at Vinci
Vinci
-Places:Italy*Vinci, Tuscany, a comune in the Province of FlorenceSerbia*Vinci, Serbia, a community in Braničevo District-People:*Leonardo Vinci, an Italian composer*Roberta Vinci, an Italian tennis player...

 said in 2011 that he had excluded the possibility that it was a self portrait, but that the painting "remains intriguing because it adds a new element to the Leonardo puzzle".

Painted in tempera grassa
Tempera
Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...

 on panel, 60 by 40 cm (23.6 by 15.7 in) it depicts a man in three-quarter view, with a long beard and wearing a dark hat. It is currently exhibited in the Museo delle Antiche Genti di Lucania (Museum of the Ancient People of Lucania) in Vaglio Basilicata
Vaglio Basilicata
Vaglio Basilicata is a town and comune in the province of Potenza, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata. It is bounded by the comuni of Albano di Lucania, Brindisi Montagna, Cancellara, Pietragalla, Potenza, Tolve and Tricarico....

, a region of Southern Italy.

In 2008 Nicola Barbatelli, Director of the Museo, discovered the painting, attributed it to Leonardo, and gave it the name Lucan portrait, from Lucania
Lucania
Lucania was an ancient district of southern Italy, extending from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Gulf of Taranto. To the north it adjoined Campania, Samnium and Apulia, and to the south it was separated by a narrow isthmus from the district of Bruttium...

, the ancient name of Basilicata. In 2010 a conference was held at which a team comprising David Bershad, Professor at University of Calgary (Canada), Peter Hohenstatt, Professor at the University of Parma, Felice Festa, Professor of Orthodontics and Gnathology at the University of Chieti, and Nicola Barbatelli, presented the findings in support of Barbatelli's attribution. No results of detailed stylistic analysis of the painting, or stylistic comparison with known works by Leonardo da Vinci or other possible authors are available, and it is unknown if such studies have taken place.

Provenance

The painting was found in 2008 by Nicola Barbatelli, director of the Museo delle Antiche Genti di Lucania, in the private collection of an aristocratic family at Acerenza (population 3,000), a village on the river Bradano near Potenza in Basilicata. The family, who have asked to remain anonymous, believed it to be a portrait of Galileo . According to Professor Peter Hohenstatt of the University of Parma, the portrait is listed on page 116 of Napoli Antica e Moderna, (1815) edited by Abate Domenico Romanelli, as being the work of Leonardo da Vinci and located in the Palazzo Baranello nella strada Cedronia of the Duke of Baranello, of the noble family Russo.

Description

The painting, in tempera grassa
Tempera
Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...

 on a wooden panel made of poplar
Poplar
Populus is a genus of 25–35 species of deciduous flowering plants in the family Salicaceae, native to most of the Northern Hemisphere. English names variously applied to different species include poplar , aspen, and cottonwood....

 60 by 44 cm (23.6 by 17.3 in) is of a man dressed in a dark garment, wearing a black hat with a small upturned brim. The man's skin is pale, his eyes blue and his hair and beard greying. The figure is set against a dark greyish monochrome background and is brightly lit from the left of the picture, illuminating the right-hand side of the sitters face, and casting a shadow across the left-hand side. The gaze of the figure is turned towards the viewer.

The identification of this portrait as Leonardo da Vinci is based upon comparison with several representations of the artist including a very similar portrait in the Uffizi, the red chalk portrait in Turin and the red chalk portrait by Francesco Melzi in Windsor and others.

The panel is constructed of two main vertical sections of wood of irregular width and joined with two inset butterfly joint
Butterfly joint
A Butterfly joint is a type of joint used either to hold two or more wooden boards together or to keep two halves of a board that have already started to split from splitting further. They may also be used to stabilize the core of a knothole, preventing it from dropping out over time.A butterfly...

s. There are narrow horizontal sections of timber at the top and bottom of the panel. These sections have half-lapped mitre joints to the verticals, visible at the front of the panel. The rear of the panel has the words "PINXIT MEA" painted on it. It is written in Roman capital letters, in "mirror writing" so that the whole inscription is reversed and reads from left to right. The inscription runs down the left side of the reverse of the painting, rather than across it.

The image on the panel is painted using a mixture of egg and oil as a medium over a ground of white gesso
Gesso
Gesso is a white paint mixture consisting of a binder mixed with chalk, gypsum, pigment, or any combination of these...

 which is visible in damaged areas and on parts of the back of the panel. The surface of the paint has cracked down the main joint, and separated in several other places. There are several areas of abrasion to the surface of the painting, the most serious damage being two scrapes across the face, one of which extends from the nostril across the corner of the eye to the brim of his hat, and another which extends from nostril to pupil.

It is apparent that there is some overpainting to the subject's left eye and cheek, and probably the mouth. There is a small curling white feather adorning the hat which is an apparent addition.

Analysis

Upon its discovery by Nicola Barbatelli, the painting was subjected to an initial examination by Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci at Vinci
Vinci
-Places:Italy*Vinci, Tuscany, a comune in the Province of FlorenceSerbia*Vinci, Serbia, a community in Braničevo District-People:*Leonardo Vinci, an Italian composer*Roberta Vinci, an Italian tennis player...

, who confirmed that the painting appeared to be from the Renaissance period. Vezzosi was reported, in February 2009, as investigating whether the painting was the work of a minor 16th century artist Cristofano dell'Altissimo
Cristofano dell'Altissimo
Cristofano dell'Altissimo was an Italian painter in Florence.For duke Cosimo I de' Medici he made at least 280 of the portraits known as the Giovio Series .Most of them can be seen at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence....

. Altissimo executed numerous portraits of famous men for Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Cosimo I de' Medici was Duke of Florence from 1537 to 1574, reigning as the first Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1569.-Biography:...

, some of them after the Giovio Series
Giovio Series
The Giovio Series, also known as the Giovio Collection or Giovio Portraits, is a series of 484 portraits assembled by the 16th century Italian Renaissance historian and biographer Paolo Giovio. It includes portraits of literary figures, rulers, statesmen and other dignitaries, many of which were...

, including a profile of Leonardo based on the red chalk profile drawing in the Royal Collection
Royal Collection
The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...

 attributed to Leonardo's companion Francesco Melzi
Francesco Melzi
Francesco Melzi was an Italian painter, favorite assistant and pupil of Leonardo da Vinci.The son of a Milanese noble family, Melzi joined the household of Leonardo da Vinci in 1506. Melzi accompanied Leonardo on trips to Rome in 1513 and to France in 1517. As a painter, Melzi worked closely with...

. Vezzosi later dismissed the early conjecture that it was by dell'Altisimo.

In February 2009, two months after the painting's discovery, Vezzosi had been erroneously quoted by the Times as saying he had excluded the possibility that the work was "a self-portrait painted by Leonardo himself" and that examination of the inscription "pinxit mea" on the reverse of the panel indicated that it was "a later addition". Vezzosi was later to say "We need to find out the exact dating of this portrait. I have excluded the possibility that we are dealing with a self-portrait painted by Leonardo himself. Nevertheless, the Acerenza portrait is intriguing because it adds a new element to the Leonardo's puzzle. Here we have Leonardo depicted as a middle-aged, blue-eyed man."

Since that time the focus of attention and research has been directed at proving the painting to be the work of Leonardo da Vinci. The Vaglia Basilicata City Council then funded an investigation by a team of scientists, many of whom were from non-art related disciplnes, to report upon anything which could be tested to either support or deny the attribution to Leonardo.

A preliminary cleaning of the painting was carried out, by Professor Giancarlo Napoli of the Suor Orsola Benincasa University in Naples, and revealed micro-cracking (craquelet) of the paint surface which cannot be reproduced artificially and supported a Renaissance date. Further investigation was carried out by a body of specialists in different fields including INNOVA, CIRCE, University of Naples, Cybernetics - National Research Council, and University Suor Orsola Benincasa.

The INNOVA centre of the Federico II University of Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, headed by Prof. Terrasi, researched the physical properties of the painting including the ground, medium and pigments, and identifying restored areas. Gaetano Di Pasquale of the University of Naples confirmed the wood of the panel to be Populus, common throughout Italy. Carbon 14 dating gave 64% chance the wood of the panel dated between 1459 and 1523, making it contemporary with Leonardo, who was born in 1453 and died in 1519. The pigments were investigated using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis
Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy
Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy is an analytical technique used for the elemental analysis or chemical characterization of a sample. It relies on the investigation of an interaction of a some source of X-ray excitation and a sample...

 (ED-XRF) and were shown, in the unrestored areas, to be compatible in age with the panel and showed no trace of modern pigments in the unrestored areas, however the feather was revealed to have been painted in a 'modern' titanium-based pigment not used in other parts of the painting.
The painting was examined with a Scanning Magnetic Microscope
Magnetic force microscope
Magnetic force microscope is a variety of atomic force microscope, where a sharp magnetized tip scans a magnetic sample; the tip-sample magnetic interactions are detected and used to reconstruct the magnetic structure of the sample surface. Many kinds of magnetic interactions are measured by MFM,...

 at a 100 μm resolution by Dr Hector Sarno of INNOVA to compose a magnetic map of the painting and to check for illegible letters. Cleaning of the back of the board revealed the reversed inscription "PINXIT MEA" written in iron gall, an ink commonly used by Leonardo. An analysis of the handwriting by graphologist Silvana Iuliano, revealed compatibility with script used by Leonardo in the Atlantic Codex.

An analysis of the soft tissue of the face, applying methods used in facial surgery, was made by Prof. Felice Festa of the University of Chieti. The painted image was subject to detailed computer analysis and 3D imaging by Prof. Orest Kormashov, University of Tallinn, Estonia; Gianni Glinni, an engineer for the Museum of Antiche Genti di Lucania, and Helen Kokk, an expert in 3D graphic design. The recreated three-dimensional image was compared with other images believed to represent Leonardo da Vinci, including the iconic red chalk in Turin, the profile drawing believed to be by Leonardo's pupil Francesco Melzi, the painted portrait in the Uffizi and the recently discovered image in the Codex on the Flight of Birds. A conclusion was that all the images, but one, reveal a face that is elongated in the lower two thirds. The image that did not comply was the red chalk so-called self-portrait in Turin, considered by some to be of Leonardo in old age.

Luigi Capasso, of the University of Chieti
University of Chieti
The G. d'Annunzio University is a university located in Chieti and Pescara, Italy. It was founded in 1960 and is organized in 11 Faculties. Student enrollment at the University is currently in excess of 23,000.-History:...

, and Col. Gianfranco De Fulvio, RIS-Ra.C.I.S. Command of the Carabinieri
Carabinieri
The Carabinieri is the national gendarmerie of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations, and is a branch of the armed forces.-Early history:...

 led an investigation into three fingerprints they found in the paint of the Lucan painting and found one of them to be "unambiguous" with the left index fingerprint on the ebony beads of Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine
Lady with an Ermine
Lady with an Ermine is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, from around 1489–1490. The subject of the portrait is identified as Cecilia Gallerani, and was probably painted at a time when she was the mistress of Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Leonardo was in the service of the Duke.The painting is...

.

Gallery of other portraits

External links

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