Portrait by Da Vinci revealed

14 October, 2009 22:19:00

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The fingerprint on a painting that experts believe as a new Leonardo da Vinci.

A previously unknown portrait by Leonardo da Vinci potentially worth tens of millions of pounds is believed to have been discovered, thanks to a fingerprint.

The painting, titled “Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress”, recently sold for a mere £12,000.

It was billed at a Christie’s sale in 1998 as “German, early 19th century” and purchased by Canadian-born Peter Silverman.

Now, a Paris laboratory has discovered that a fingerprint from the tip of an index or middle-finger, found on the top left of the picture, was “highly comparable” to one found on Da Vinci’s work “St Jerome” which he painted early in his career, the Antiques Trade Gazette reported.

If verified as a genuine Da Vinci it could be worth tens of millions of pounds, said the report.