£12,000 portrait revealed to be a £100m Leonardo after art detectives discover the master's fingerprint

£100m surprise: Experts believe the fingerprint found in the top left hand corner of the painting, previously billed as 'German, early 19thC', could be that of Leonardo da Vinci's



Art experts believe a new Leonardo da Vinci portrait may have been discovered - thanks to a fingerprint.

The painting, titled Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress, recently sold for a mere £12,000 ($19,000). It was billed at a Christie's sale in 1998 as 'German, early 19th century'.



Now a growing number of leading art experts agree that it is almost certainly by Leonardo da Vinci and could be worth about £100 million.

A Paris laboratory has found that a fingerprint on the picture is 'highly comparable' to one on a da Vinci work in the Vatican, which was painted early in the artist's career when he was thought not to use assistants.

A forensic art expert found the print near the top left of the work, corresponding to the tip of the index or middle-finger, was 'highly comparable' to a fingerprint on da Vinci's St Jerome in the Vatican.

The magazine said that infrared analysis showed 'significant' stylistic parallels with those in da Vinci's Portrait of a Woman in Profile in Windsor Castle and shows that the drawing and hatching were made by a left-handed artist, as da Vinci is known to have been.

Drawn in ink and chalks, the beautiful young lady's costume and elaborate hairstyle reflect Milanese fashion of the late 15th century, while carbon analysis of the artwork is consistent with such a dating, the magazine reported.

Da Vinci scholar Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at Oxford University, believes that 'by a process of elimination', the fresh-faced teenager, shown in profile, could be Bianca Sforza, daughter of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan (1452-1508) and his mistress Bernardina de Corradis.

Prof Kemp believes the portrait, which measures 13ins by 9ins, must date from around 1496 when, aged 13 or 14, the 'Bella Principessa' married the Duke's army captain, Galeazzo Sanseverino, a patron of da Vinci's. Tragically, she died four months after the wedding.

It would be da Vinci's first known portrait of the princess, although he painted two of the Duke's mistresses Cecilia Gallerani and Lucrezia Crivelli.

Experts said the fingerprint was 'highly comparable' to a fingerprint on da Vinci's St Jerome (right) in the Vatican, the artist seen (left) in a 19th century portrait



The picture was sold at Christie's in New York in 1998, in an Old Master Drawings sale as a Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress - catalogued as 'German, early 19th century', with an estimate of 12,000 to 16,000 dollars.

It went under the hammer for 19,000 dollars and was later sold for a similar sum to a Canadian-born connoisseur, Peter Silverman, in 2007.

Mr Silverman believed that there was more to the portrait and started to look into the matter after a discussion last year with Dr Nicholas Turner, formerly Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum.

The portrait is due to go on display in an exhibition in Sweden next year.