How does this artwork elucidate its Provenance?
If the drawing is originally a Leonardo illustration for the present-day Warsaw copy of the Sforziad, its history is the same as that of the book until the drawing was cut out from the volume. The book is known to have been rebound at the turn of the 18th and 19th century.The modern provenance of the drawing is known only from 1955 and is documented only from 1998. According to a lawsuit brought by Jeanne Marchig against Christie's after the drawing's re-attribution to Leonardo, the drawing belonged to her husband Giannino Marchig, an art restorer, when they married in 1955. Jeanne Marchig became the owner of the drawing in 1983, following her husband's death.The work was included in a sale at Christie's in New York on January 30, 1998, catalogued as Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress, and described as "German School, early 19th Century". The seller was Jeanne Marchig. It was sold for $21,850 (including buyer's premium) to a New York art dealer who sold it on for a similar amount in 2007.In 2007, art dealer Peter Silverman, purchased the portrait from a gallery on East 73rd Street, owned by Kate Ganz. Peter Silverman believed that the portrait was possibly from an older period, potentially dating back to the Renaissance period, and sought the opinions of experts who have since attributed it to Leonardo da Vinci. In 2010 one of those experts, Martin Kemp, made it the subject of his book co-authored with Pascal Cotte, La Bella Principessa: The Story of the New Masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci. This is now revised in Kemp and Cotte's La Bella Principessa di Leonardo da Vinci. Ritratto di Bianca Sforza, Florence, 2012.
The drawing was shown as a Leonardo in a 2010 exhibition called And there was Light in Eriksberg, Gothenburg, in Sweden, and was estimated by various newspaper reports to be worth more than $160 million. Silverman promoted the Leonardo connection in his 2012 book Leonardo's Lost Princess: One Man's Quest to Authenticate an Unknown Portrait by Leonardo da Vinci and has declined an offer for the portrait of $80 million.
Eriksberg, Gothenburg Warsaw provenance Christie's Sforza Leonardo da Vinci $ Vinci Martin Kemp Princess Provenance