Leonardo Discovery Claimed

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31865, 18 December 1968, Page 6

Leonardo Discovery Claimed

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) WASHINGTON. An ait expert has said 15 years of study has convinced him that a picture of a Madonna with a crooked finger which has hung in the United States National Gallery of Art since early last year was done by Leonardo da Vinci. If Mr Raymond Stites, educational director at the gallery is correct, the painting

would be worth millions—and would be only the second Leonardo painting owned by a museum outside Europe. The only other Leonardo in America is his portrait of Ginevra dei Benci, owned by the National Gallery since 1956. when it was purchased, reputedly for ssm. from Prince Franz Josef II of Liechtenstein. Mr Stites, a Leonardo scholar since 1920, said the five-by-six and a half inch painting “Madonna and Child with a Pomegranate.” reveals some “stylistic fingerprints” which show “it could not have been done by any one other than Leonardo.”

In the painting, the little finger of the left hand of both the Christ infant and the Madonna is stunted, pointed and possibly crippled, a quirk that showed up in Leonardo's work for his entire life. Mr Stites, who is 69, said he thought that. Leonardo himself might have had such a deformed finger, either through a congenital effect or an accident. But the crippled finger was only one of dozens of clues he cited in two articles published by the Italian art journal, "Critica Darte,” as

evidence that the Madonna:’ was the work of Leonardo, i! In an experiment, Mr ! Stites applied linseed oil, 1 varnish and turpentine over ' tempera paint—in the technique described by Leonardo in his notebooks—and found , the colours duplicated those of the Madonna. He noted that the landscape shown behind the figures in the Madonna resembles that of Vinci, the small town 20 miles west of Florence where Leonardo I was born. : He said the pudgy' arms i and legs of the Christ child 1 in the painting resembled'] those sketched by Leonardo.: in a drawing now in Queen ! Elizabeth's Windsor Castle!! collection. 1 ,