Italian scholars examine Leonardo da Vinci’s handwritten text on student’s drawing, contents unknown: Chunichi Shimbun Web

Culture Italian scholars examine Leonardo da Vinci’s handwritten notes on student’s sketch, but contents remain unknown

15:50 on August 24, 2024 (updated at 16:05 on August 24)

[Geneva Kyodo News]Italian art historians have identified text written on a part of a painting owned by a Swiss art collector as likely to be in Leonardo da Vinci’s own handwriting. It has not yet been possible to decipher what is written, and Silvano Vincetti, who led the appraisal, said, “It is a mystery that may one day be solved.”

The painting, a red charcoal drawing of a young woman’s torso, was rediscovered in the 1990s after passing through the hands of Swiss antiquities dealers, and in 2001 the late Carlo Pedretti, a well-known authority on Leonardo da Vinci, identified it as a work by Da Vinci’s pupil Cesare da Sesto (1477-1523).