Lucan portrait of Leonardo da Vinci

For generations a noble family kept this bearded face in a cupboard, believing it was Galileo. In 2008 someone claimed it was Leonardo da Vinci painting himself, and the argument has not ended since.

The story behind the painting

The panel surfaced in 2008 in the private collection of an aristocratic family at Acerenza, a village near Potenza in Basilicata, southern Italy. The family, who asked to remain anonymous, believed it showed Galileo. Nicola Barbatelli, director of the Museo delle Antiche Genti di Lucania, found it, attributed it to Leonardo da Vinci, and named it the Lucan portrait, after Lucania, the ancient name of Basilicata. Professor Peter Hohenstatt pointed to an 1815 guide, Napoli Antica e Moderna, which lists a portrait as Leonardo's work in a Naples palace of the Duke of Baranello. In 2010 a team including Barbatelli, Hohenstatt, David Bershad and Felice Festa presented findings supporting the attribution. Who painted it, and when, remains disputed.

What to look for

Stand before a panel of poplar wood, 60 by 44 centimetres, painted in tempera grassa, a mixture of egg and oil, over white gesso. A man in a dark garment and black hat with a small upturned brim turns three-quarters toward us, his gaze meeting ours. His skin is pale, his eyes blue, his hair and beard greying. Light falls strongly from the left, illuminating one side of his face and leaving the other in shadow, against a dark greyish background. Look closely and you will see the wear of time: cracks along the main joint and two scrapes across the face. The small curling white feather on the hat is an apparent later addition, and some overpainting touches the eye, cheek and probably the mouth.

Meaning and intent

The heart of the matter is identity. The case for Leonardo rests on comparison with other images of him, especially a very similar portrait in the Uffizi, the red chalk portrait in Turin and the chalk profile by Francesco Melzi at Windsor. On the back, the words PINXIT MEA are painted in Roman capitals in mirror writing, reading right to left, a habit associated with Leonardo; a graphologist found the script compatible with his. Carbon dating gave a 64 percent chance that the wood dates between 1459 and 1523. Yet sceptics remain. Alessandro Vezzosi said he excluded a self-portrait while finding the picture intriguing, and the Wikipedia summary states it is generally believed to be a 19th-century forgery. The sources give no settled answer, and neither should we.

Legacy

Disputed or not, the portrait has travelled. In 2019 it was exhibited in Madrid alongside other material related to Leonardo, and it usually hangs in the Museo delle Antiche Genti di Lucania in Vaglio Basilicata. Its reception has been stormy: in 2017 the University of Malta refused permission for an exhibition built around it, citing doubts from its art history department, a decision Barbatelli dismissed. The painting's real legacy may be the debate itself. It shows how attribution works, with scientists, historians and enthusiasts weighing wood, pigment, ink and resemblance, and how a single face in a cupboard can stir the enduring longing to see Leonardo looking back at us.

Did you know?

The owners believed the portrait showed Galileo before its 2008 rediscovery.
The back bears the words 'PINXIT MEA' in mirror writing, running down the left side.
Carbon dating gave a 64% chance the poplar panel dates between 1459 and 1523.
The white feather on the hat was found to contain a modern titanium-based pigment, marking it as a later addition.

Wikipedia · Wikidata