Focus on this artwork and explain the Attribution.
Vertumnus and Pomona has been mistaken for the work of Leonardo, such as while it was in the collection of Frederick the Great. The painting however has a longstanding, though debated, attribution to Francesco Melzi. The first to attribute the painting to Melzi was the art historian Pierre-Jean Mariette (1694–1774). An early but uncertain attribution to Melzi came from the art historian Giovanni Morelli in 1877. In 1905, Wilhelm von Bode confirmed Melzi as the artist of this painting as well as of Flora at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. In discussing Morelli's attribution, Marion Wilcox argued in 1919 that Melzi is the only possible author as the only alternative would be Giampietrino. To Wilcox, Giampietrino's work never achieved the "distinction" seen in Vertumnus and Pomona. In 1929, Wilhelm Sudia likewise gave the painting to Melzi based on the stylistic relationship to Leonardo.There have been detractors from an attribution to Melzi as well. Georg Hirth and Richard Muther argued in 1889 that it could not have been painted by Melzi because there was little sixteenth-century evidence to suggest that Melzi was anything more than a "dilettante in painting." Rodman Henry acknowledged in 1959 that this painting and Flora at the Hermitage Museum shared a similar style, but agreed there was too little evidence to suggest Melzi was a practicing artist, writing: "There is no proof in any form that would indicate that Melzi left a single painting." He noted that, even though Melzi was with Leonardo until the master's death in 1519 at Chateau Cloux in France, Leonardo never wrote about Melzi as an artist.Remnants of Melzi's signature were uncovered in 1995, which survive as the Greek letters S and H on a rock near the foot of Vertumnus. This matches early descriptions that the painting maintained the signature until at least the eighteenth century. The signature was likely removed so the painting could be sold as a Leonardo.
Giampietrino Vertumnus Frederick the Great Hermitage Museum Pomona Francesco Melzi left Flora Chateau Cloux Pierre-Jean Mariette Giovanni Morelli Saint Petersburg