Now, the art world has been left reeling by the discovery of another Da Vinci painting, the first in 100 years. La Bella Principessa was previously thought to be a 19th century German portrait. However, forensics have unveiled a fingerprint in the top left corner of the portrait. Da Vinci was renowned for regularly using his hands as part of his painting technique. The forensics used would have no doubt interested Da Vinci himself, optics being one of his many talents. The multispectral camera was able to capture light, and shadow, far beyond the limit of the human eye. This, coupled with the left handed stylistic and technical parallels between Da Vinci’s other work, most notably his Portrait of a Woman in Profile, housed in Windsor Castle, have left little doubt that it really is a genuine Da Vinci.

The painting was sold in the famous art auction house, Christies, in 1998 for $19,000. Savvy Canadian-born art collector Peter Silverman then bought the portrait for a Swedish collector for the same price in 2007. One London art gallery has valued the painting at $150 million, giving the Swedish collector a casual $149 million profit.

Martin Kemp, a History of Art professor at Oxford, believes that the teenager painted is Bianca Sforza, who married Galeazzo Sanseverino, a patron of Da Vinci’s. So excited by the painting, Kemp is said to have written a two hundred page journal on it. One has little doubt that he wouldn’t have written such a journal before the painting was discovered to be a Da Vinci.

Its aesthetic qualities haven’t changed, but its reputation, and its price tag certainly have. The painting is of great importance to the art world, as only about fifteen of Da Vinci’s other paintings exist. The painting will go on display in Sweden, after that who knows? It would be a travesty, and a great loss to the art world were it bought and housed in a private gallery. To discover such a gem, and to have it snatched away by someone with exceptionally deep pockets would be to deny art lovers world wide the chance to marvel at the work of one of the world’s true greats. Although I’m sure Silverman and his Swedish collector wouldn’t see it that way.