A Newly Discovered Leonardo Sketch of Saint Sebastian? First Impressions: Four Possibilities

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A Newly Discovered Leonardo Sketch of Saint Sebastian? First Impressions: Four Possibilities.  Read about the identification here and here.  My immediate first impression: It sure looks like the real deal!  The fact that Leonardo's characteristic mirror handwriting appears on the reverse strengthens this impression, as does the left handed cross-hatching on the front, and the general style of drawing, which looks very much like Leonardo's.  When we ask the question of authenticity there are three possibilities: (1) the drawing on both front and back come from the hand of Leonardo, (2) the drawing on the back is by Leonardo but the drawing on the front by someone else, (3) the drawing on the front is by Leonardo and the drawing on the back is by someone else, and (4) the drawing on both front and back are by someone other than Leonardo.

St. Sabastian Recently Identified as a Drawing by Leonardo

Reverse of the picture with Leonardo's characteristic mirror writing

Option four would likely be the case only if we were dealing with a very expertly produced forgery.  I do not think this is at all likely.  The drawings on both sides are very good.  I do not believe that even an Eric Hebborn could produce such a plausible Leonardo drawing.

Option three also might raise suspicion of forgery, since it is unlikely that anyone but Leonardo would have produced something that looked so like Leonardo.  Motive: To establish greater confidence that the drawing on the front is really by Leonardo, since apart from the left handed crosshatching the picture alone might conceivably have been drawn by another.  The problem here is that the forger would, gain, have to be very good.

Option two might simply point to an innocent situation where. say, a student of Leonardo may had executed a drawing on a piece of paper Leonardo had discarded. The difficulty again is the left handed cross-hatching.  On the the hand a forger might attempt to increase the value of a paper with some authentic writing and drawing on the back with the intent of greatly enhancing the value.  Left handed crosshatching is easy enough to simulate by  right-handed artist.  In this case it one would simply have to turn the drawing sideways with the head on the right. And yet who would be audacious enough to attempt such a thing?

This leaves option one, namely that the identification is correct. To me this seems like the most likely one.  That's my first impression anyway.

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