"Profile of a Young Fiancée", now attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci (Lumiere Technology image)

Forensic art expert Paul Biro of Montreal proclaimed the painting an authentic Da Vinci after analysis of the styles, technique and materials used in the painting, noting that the fingerprint, which matches one on a Da Vinci painting of St Jerome in the Vatican, was the clincher.  “Leonardo used his hands liberally and frequently as part of his painting technique.  His fingerprints are found on many of his works,” Biro said.  “I was able to make use of multispectral images [from Lumiere] to make a little smudge a very readable fingerprint.”

The painting was purchased on behalf of an anonymous Swiss collector by art dealer Peter Silverman for approximately $19,000 from the Ganz gallery in New York in 2007.  The seller, Kate Ganz, had purchased the painting for near the same price a little over a decade earlier.  The Swiss collector had seen images of the painting, and asked Silverman to check it out, as it did not seem to be a 19th Century painting.  Silverman says that although he thought it looked like a Da Vinci, he initially thought the idea far-fetched.  “Of course you say, ‘Come on, that’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing as a da Vinci floating around,’” Silverman said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. Nevertheless, he knew he had found something, and quickly purchased the painting for his Swiss client.  He immediately began researching it and says “I started looking in the areas around da Vinci and all the people who could have possibly done it and through elimination I came back to da Vinci.”

He consulted with Nicholas Turner, a former curator of drawings at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the British Museum, who declared it a Da Vinci. The same sentiment was expressed by other art experts who examined the paining.  Any doubt has been removed by the discovery and identification of the fingerprint, Silverman says.

The painting has been estimated at $150 million by one art expert.  Silverman says his wealthy Swiss client has promised to buy him “lunch and dinner and caviar for the rest of my life” should the painting be sold.