NEW DISCOVERY

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 83, 5 October 1933, Page 18

NEW DISCOVERY

LEONARDO PICTURE

In view of the excessive rarity of authentic paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, and more especially- of pictures painted between 1472, when h& was enrolled in the Florence Painters' Guild, and 14S0, particular importance attaches to "the discovery made by Professor E. Langton Douglas, .former director of the National (Gallery of

Ireland, of a small panel depicting a sceno from the legend of San Douato of Arczzo, and published by him in an illustrated monograph printed for privato circulation only, writes P. G. Konody in the "Daily Mail." So far there has been only one- picture of that period generally accepted as from the master's own hand—namely, the "Annunciation" of the Louvre. Professor Douglas now proves beyond the possibility of dispute that the newly-discovered panel, together with the Louvre picture, formed part of the predclla of alargo altarpiece, and sug-

gests that this altar piece is the "Madonna di Piazza," in the Cathedral of Pistoia, on which Leonardo d"a Vinci and Lorenzo di Credi worked as pupils of Verrocchio, from whom the altar piece had been commissioned. Not only are the two panels identical in height and in the scale of the figures, in compositional arrangement, and such details as the landscape, architectural figures, and the drapery fojds, but the two panels are also actually cut from the same piece of wood. The legend illustrated concerns a tax collector who, falsely accused of hay-

ing stolen sums of money paid to Tiiiniu taxes, appealed to San Donatp, explain* , ed to him that- the money had been hidden during his absence. from home by his wife, who died before his return. The bishop and the widower at once resorted to the- woman's tomb, -where San Donato prayed for help, and on calling on .flic dead, woman's spirit ta reveal the place-of concealment was given the desired information by a voice from the void. . The precious little picture has unfortunately left Europe to pass into .the hands of a transatlantic collector.