Leonardo Da Vinci wikipedia commons A painting that sold for $72 at auction in 1958 is worth an estimated $120 million today.

Thought to be the work of Leonardo Da Vinci's student, the 500-year-old painting took a sudden leap in value when experts determined it was painted by the Old Master himself.

One of the experts commissioned to ID the painting, Professor Pietro Marani, told the Daily Mail:

"We were given a day to examine it and it was all the time we needed - we could tell at once that it was a work by Da Vinci and the documentation and analysis proved it beyond doubt...

It was only after the painting was restored that its true history emerged, the hair and eyebrows which had been added were removed and it was very clear. There are lots of copies of this painting and it was popular for Da Vinci's students to paint but this is undoubtedly by his own hand - the colours are wonderful.

The blues and the reds in the painting are very similar to those of Da Vinci's Last Supper and the pigment is also very similar to his Virgin on the Rocks painting.'

The work is currently owned by Robert Simon Fine Art in New York, which acquired it through a clearance sale in 2004.