Remember that $19,ooo German betrothal portrait that a Swiss collector bought thinking it might be a Leonardo? The NY Times did a story about some of the scientific tests but still there were doubters. Now, the Antiques Trade Gazette says Leonardo’s finger prints are all over the picture . . . literally:

ATG have had exclusive access to that scientific evidence and can reveal that it literally reveals the hand – and fingerprint – of the artist in the work. The fingerprint is “highly comparable” to one on a Leonardo work in the Vatican. Professor Kemp’s assertion is backed by scientific evidence obtained by the revolutionary “multispectral” camera pioneered by Lumière Technology of Paris.

Peter Paul Biro, the Montreal-based forensic art expert, examined the multispectral images and found a fingerprint near the top left of the work, corresponding to the tip of the index or middle-finger, and “highly comparable” to a fingerprint on Leonardo’s St Jerome in the Vatican (which, stresses Biro, is an early work from a time when Leonardo is not known to have employed assistants).

A palm-print in the chalk on the sitter’s neck “is also consistent in application to Leonardo’s use of his hands in creating texture and shading”, adds Biro, who is credited with pioneering fingerprint studies to help resolve authentication and attribution issues of works of art.

Is This the Greatest Art Market Discovery of the Century? (Antiques Trade Gazette)