Jesus Painting Recently Discovered is a real Leonardo da Vinci drawing, Expert Says

Italian scholars credit a recently found drawing of Jesus Christ to Leonardo da Vinci. Biblical figure’s red chalk drawing has been locked in a private collection for decades.

Art historians may have come upon the art world’s Holy Grail after discovering a new master’s work, by the Renaissance master, reports The Telegraph

Da Vinci, who died in 1519, is one of the world’s most influential artists, behind such works as the Mona Lisa and the painting of the Last Supper.

The newly discovered drawing depicts a calm Christ with a Mona Lisa-Esque gaze and bears a striking resemblance to other works by Leonardo.

It is now set to undergo rigorous scrutiny as the art world attempts to authenticate whether it is the real deal. The sketch had been hidden in a private collection locked away in a bank in Lombardy.

Lab tests have already found the paper dates back to the early 16th century and it bears a striking resemblance to other works by Leonardo.

Annalisa Di Maria, an Italian art historian who has studied the picture, said the pose, perspective, and style all appear to be that of the master.

She said: “It has that dynamism and sense of movement that is typical of Leonardo.

“The rendering of the beard is practically identical to Leonardo’s self-portraits, as are the eyes.

“And the painting is in red chalk, which the artist used a lot, including in the sketches for The Last Supper.”

Experts are due to present a 60-page study of the artwork at a press conference in Florence once Italy comes through its second wave of the coronavirus.

Ms. Di Maria added: “It is a remarkably beautiful and refined work and I’m absolutely convinced it is a sketch by Leonardo.”

The sketch is currently in the hands of a pair of collectors in the town of Lecco, northern Italy.

It is not clear where the artwork had been hiding over the centuries after it was discovered in the vault of the bank. Martin Kemp, a professor in the history of art at Oxford University, was cautious about the Italians’ attribution.

He has often had to bat away claims about Leonardo due to the intense popularity of Dan Brown’s book and movie The Da Vinci Code. The story claims the hidden secrets of Christianity – such as Jesus’s descendants and the Holy Grail – can be deciphered from Da Vinci’s work.

Mr. Kemp told The Telegraph: “I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand but I simply can’t tell without seeing the drawing and the scientific evidence.

“I would need to see if it is drawn left-handed. Leonardo drew everything with his left hand.”

The dating of the paper needs to be independently verified. He also suggested it’s possible the sketch could have been produced by a pupil of Leonardo.

Prof Kemp said: “There is quite a crop of paintings of Christ and Salvator Mundi that were produced by followers of Leonardo,”

The painting of Jesus – the Salvator Mundi – was rediscovered in 2005 and became the most expensive painting ever sold, going for £340million.

However, it remains unclear exactly how much involvement he had in the work.

The expert said: “‘m not dismissing it but it has got a long way to go. It would be dangerous to write it off but even more dangerous to accept it at this point.”

Petrified Horse with saddle and harness unearthed intact in a stable near Pompeii

In a missed escape to safety from the Vesuvius eruption, some horses recently found in a 2,000-year-old stable seem to be frozen.

Just at the top of the equestrian iceberg was a horse recently discovered stuck in the ruins of a residential Pompeii villa. After the finding was confirmed last week, archaeologists have revealed that during the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius that famously buried the ancient Roman settlement, at least three horses died in the villa’s stable.

When they were struck by the toxic, pyroclastic floods that swept through Pompeii and its surroundings after midnight in the summer of 79 A.D., at least two of the animals were harnessed and may be prepared for a frantic evacuation. 

The stunning, complete plaster cast of one of the villa’s horses is the first of its kind from Pompeii. When the volcano erupted, many of the town’s residents and animals collapsed and died in place after being struck with waves of superheated poisonous gas and ash. Their decaying bodies then left hauntingly shaped voids in the hardened ash layer.

In the late 19th century, archaeologists developed a method of injecting plaster into these voids to capture more details about the dead. Since then, it’s mostly been used on humans—and an infamous chained dog—but this was the first attempt on a large mammal.

The team also cast two legs from another horse discovered nearby, but the rest of the void left by that body had been destroyed by tomb robbers, known locally as tombaroli, who were tunnelling around of the walls of the ancient villa to steal artefacts they could sell on the black market.

Newfound survivor camp may explain the fate of the famed Lost Colony of Roanoke

The void and skeletal remains of a third horse were also almost completely destroyed by tombaroli, zooarchaeologist Chiara Corbino, who studied the horses, tells National Geographic.

Evidence for bits and bridles around the two cast horses suggests that they were harnessed by people trying to flee the eruption, says Massimo Osanna, general director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii. The remains of the third horse are too incomplete to determine whether it was also harnessed at the time of death, says Corbino.

Operation Artemis

The villa, located in the Civita Giuliana area outside the walls of ancient Pompeii, was originally discovered at the beginning of the 20th century, then partially excavated in the 1950s and later sealed.

Investigators spotted the tombaroli tunnels last summer and alerted archaeologists from the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, who then excavated the previously unknown stable area.

Italian authorities have since confirmed to National Geographic that the find is the result of a significant criminal investigation known as Operazione Artemide (Operation Artemis), led by Italy’s national gendarmerie, the Carabinieri.

This multi-year investigation took off in 2014 after thieves stole a frescoed depiction of Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt, from the walls of an ancient Pompeiian house that is currently closed to the public.

By early 2015, the operation had swept up more than 140 suspects—tombaroli, illegal art dealers, and even some mafia members—in simultaneous dawn raids across 22 Italian provinces. Teams recovered some 2,000 ancient artefacts, including illegally excavated vases, coins, and architectural fragments.

According to Osanna, research at the villa has been concluded for the time being, but the archaeologists do not rule out continuing excavations in future, which might reveal yet more tragic moments frozen in time.

Archaeologists discovered ancient bedroom ‘erotica’ art in Pompeii

In the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii was a “sensual” depiction of a legendary Spartan queen who is sex with a swan. Further evidence, not that it was needed, that people just love erotic pictures.

In a bedroom in the town that was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, a newly discovered fresco capturing a scene from classical mythology was found.

The figure of Leda, impregnated by the Roman god Jupiter, who has taken the form of a swan. The incredibly detailed artwork shows Leda protecting the swan with her cloak as he sits on her lap.

Archaeologists uncovered the, incredibly vivid, fresco during works to bolster Pompeii’s structures after rains and wear-and-tear caused some ruins to collapse, the body that oversees the ancient site said.

Depictions of Leda and Jupiter were not uncommon in Pompeii but the archaeological park’s director Massimo Osanna praised the discovery as exceptional because the skilled artist had painted it to make it appear that Leda was looking at whoever entered the bedroom.

“Leda watches the spectator with a sensuality that’s absolutely pronounced,” Osanna told Italian news agency ANSA.

He noted the fresco’s context in the Greek “myth of love, with an explicit sensuality in a bedroom where, obviously beside sleep, there could be other activities.”

The painting was found in an opulent house where another splendid fresco was discovered earlier this year.

Osanna said one theory is that the owner was a rich merchant who wanted to display his good taste by filling his house with myth-inspired art.

Leda is an important figure in classical mythology. She was said to have borne children fathered by the god Zeus, the Greek version of Jupiter, and by a mortal king of Sparta. She is the mother of Helen of Troy and the twin’s Castor and Pollux.

Centuries after the destruction of Pompeii the story of the swan’s seduction of Leda became a favoured subject in Renaissance Italy and inspired works by Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

The fresco is the latest in a series of impressive recent finds in Pompeii. Last Year graffiti was discovered that shifted the timeline of the catastrophic eruption by several months while the separate discovery of six skeletons huddled together shed further light on how people reacted as Vesuvius laid waste to their world.