Nor does the observation that a left-handed artist drew the portrait convince the sceptics. According to Pietro C Marani, Italy’s most distinguished Leonardo scholar, who oversaw the restoration of The Last Supper : “The fact that one is looking at a drawing by a left-handed artist does not carry any weight: there exist copies of drawings by Leonardo made by imitators which present this particular characteristic – by, Francesco Melzi, for example, as Kenneth Clark and others have already written.” Likewise, a copyist could easily arrive at the sitter’s costume by studying any Milanese 15th-century portrait. Even the drawing’s obvious antiquity has drawn fire from one museum director, who asked not to be named. He believes the drawing is not even 19th century, and thinks it is “a screaming 20th-century fake”, made up out of a “compilation of obviously Leonardesque elements that is not even close to Leonardo himself”. For this well-known connoisseur of Italian painting and sculpture, the damage and repairs are suspicious, for, although apparent to the naked eye, they are not so extensive that they make the picture unappealing or unsaleable – as it would be, for example, if the repairs disfigured the face.