Leonardo's Lost Princess Read Free

nobility, beauty, and spirituality of Renaissance art, which they lamented had been lost by the modern neoclassicists. 2 Modeling themselves after the pious romantics, they lived a pseudomonastic life, dressed in monks’ garb, and called themselves the Brotherhood of St. Luke after a medieval painters’ guild.
    In 1810, four of the cadre moved to Rome, where they set up shop in an abandoned monastery. As their numbers grew, their influence spread. Artists such as Johann Friedrich Overbeck, Franz Pforr, Ludwig Vogel, and Peter von Cornelius created elaborate pieces, often duplicating the work of great Masters such as Raphael and Rubens. For example, Franz Pforr painted a variation of Raphael’s St. George and the Dragon , and others painted The Wedding Feast at Cana and Madonna and Child , in the style of the Masters.
    Eventually the group disbanded and most of the artists returned to Germany, but they made a mark on the art world that was felt for decades. Still, the Nazarene artists are practically unknown by most people today, and accounts of their era are sketchy at best—at least in English; there are some written in German. Short of traveling to Germany, there’s no way to see the Nazarene paintings. Many critics dismiss the art as plastic and fault the Nazarenes for using art to serve religious purposes, thus diluting its importance and purity. In some respects, their aims were similar to those of the current fundamentalist Christian revival, whose followers read biblical implications into every endeavor, no matter how painfully forced they seem.
    Stylistically, most experts have little trouble distinguishing true Renaissance art from the nineteenth-century derivatives.
    Having once lived in Munich for several years, visiting museums replete with works of the Nazarene school, I was sufficiently familiar with it to know that this portrait did not belong among its works. It was simply not in the spirit of the Nazarenes. In particular, there was no religious symbolism or pious significance to the work. To me, it was not at all reminiscent of the nineteenth-century German painters. That determination had been made by just one man, Fran¸ois Borne, Christie’s resident expert for Old Master drawings, and to this day there has been no explanation from Borne or from Christie’s of how this attribution came to be. I would love to sit across a table from Borne and hear his reasoning, but I seriously doubt that this will ever happen.
    If the lady in profile was not the work of a nineteenth-century German artist, then by whose hand was it? That was less clear. Although I recognized some characteristic Leonardo touches, the “L-word” didn’t even spring to my mind. First, that would have been too far-fetched. The portrait was, after all, catalogued by Christie’s, one of the world’s leading auction houses, and it was logical to assume that the house had done due diligence. I was ignorant of the provenance (the record of the artwork’s history) and the technical examination that had surely occurred. I had a healthy respect for Christie’s experts.
    By the time I arrived New York for the Old Masters auction in January 1998, I had looked at the catalog image of the portrait many times. The first thing I wanted to do was see the real thing for myself. I headed over to Christie’s to take a look. In the showroom, I gave it close scrutiny, and I have to say, somewhat to my surprise, it was everything I might have hoped for. On the spot I decided to place a bid for double the minimum estimate.
    I didn’t plan to attend the auction itself. I make it a principle not to be seen bidding in an auction room. You never know who might be inclined to bid against you, just for spite—or because they think you may know something they don’t. I am more comfortable with anonymity.
    Christie’s auctions are the ultimate insider’s game, but often Christie’s makes news in the mainstream press, especially when there is something