Imagine walking into a gallery in New York City and buying a painting.  An obscure work, thought to be 19th Century German.  It’s a well-made portrait, but nothing special.  Then, after careful analysis and the lucky uncovering of a fingerprint, the truth is uncovered:  for $19,000 you could have bought an original work of Leonardo da Vinci, the famed Renaissance artist, architect, inventor, and all-around creative genius.

Such is the tale of a painting now called “Profile of La Bella Principessa,” a painting by da Vinci of Bianca Sforza, daughter of his patron Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan.  The painting dates from 1496 and is estimated to be worth several hundred million dollars.  The work was painted on animal-skin vellum for the cover of a book of poetry dedicated to Bianca.

All the credit for saving the work goes to New York art dealer Peter Silverman, who first figured out that the painting wasn’t 19th Century German, and who undertook the long and arduous process of figuring out just who painted the mystery girl.  He consulted with experts from around the world, devoted hours of research into the students of Da Vinci, and consulted with Lumière Technology in Paris for the high-tech spectral analysis that was icing on the cake.  All that work, and he doesn’t even get to keep the painting!

Image:  Telegraph

Tags: Leonardi da Vinci, lost daVinci painting found, Profile of the Bella Principessa, La Bella Principessa, Renaissance art, Bianca Sforza, Peter Silverman

Given the abysmal state of most school text books these days when it comes to spelling errors, typos, and general inaccuracies, it’s no wonder when people don’t take the time to proofread things very closely before they make them.  For example, in Charlotte, North Carolina, there’s a road called Independence Boulevard.  However, when the North [...]

How do you pass the time when you’re stuck in a hole miles underground, in cramped conditions, with nothing but bottled water, field rations, and chemical toilets for comfort?  Why, you take a cue from every other shut-in and play video games!  Those unfortunate Chilean miners trapped in the rescue shelter for the next few [...]

There’s an old rhetorical question concerning how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  Well, I can’t answer that, but I can tell you how many of the Old World’s tiniest frogs can sit on the end of a pencil.  If we’re talking about the Microhyla nepenthicola, a super-tiny frog that lives [...]

For a guy who has only been on the air for a few years, Tomasz Schafernaker has a habit of getting himself in trouble on a pretty regular basis.  The Polish-born weatherman for BBC News joined the national outfit in 2006 and has already found himself in hot water previously.  In 2006, he had to [...]

There’s a surprising amount of dancing in the animal kingdom.  From boogie bears to samba-dancing babies, everything and everyone enjoys dancing, even if they’re not good at it.  However, this red squirrel caught doing his best disco moves just might be the John Travolta of the animal kingdom.
The hilariously wonderful image of a squirrel re-enacting [...]

When you’re making an incredibly unhealthy sandwich, you have two options.  One, you can skip the bread and make yourself a snack with two slices of meat with toppings between them.  Or, you can go the other route and take bread and wrap it around more bread.  No matter what you do, throw in as [...]

It’s hard to think that people could get mad over this sort of thing, but commuter trains in Germany were delayed for nearly two hours by, of all things, a family of ducks.  The ducks had settled down near the train tracks at Kiel Central Station in Germany and, rather than turn the ducks into [...]