Could the Louvre’s “Virgin and St. Anne” provide the proof that
the (London) National Gallery’s “Virgin of the Rocks” is not by
Leonardo da Vinci? When the National Gallery’s restored “Virgin
of the Rocks” was pronounced an entirely autograph Leonardo we
were left reeling with incredulity. Picture restorers rarely
decline opportunities to claim “discoveries” but could they
really be claiming an ability to make a picture an autograph
Leonardo simply by thinning its varnish? During the media frenzy
of the National Gallery’s £1.5bn Leonardo blockbuster, its chief
restorer, Larry Keith, was asked if a distinctive Leonardo
brushstroke had emerged. “No”, he said, proof of authenticity
lay in the picture’s internal relationships. Given that those
relationships differ markedly from the ones present in the
Louvre’s unquestionably autograph “Virgin of the Rocks”, what
accounted for the discrepancies? The then curator, Luke Syson,
replied that Leonardo’s style had, in the London copy, become
abstracted, less naturalisti