If it is a da Vinci, skeptics say, it went unrecognized by auction-house experts and the specialized dealers who attended the sale, including the one who bought it. Eighteen months ago, the Swiss collector showed the portrait to Peter Silverman, a friend and Canadian collector who was the first to suspect his friend might have made an amazing investment. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, saw the work in December and was struck by the left-handed shading — da Vinci was left-handed — as well as the physiognomy and the details. Carmen Bambach, curator of drawings and prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and a leading Leonardo specialist, said, based on the photograph, the “work does not seem to resemble the drawings and paintings by the great master.

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