A small Renaissance painting owned by an American museum and not on public view for most of the past two decades has been identified as partly the work of Leonardo da Vinci. A Miracle of Saint Donato of Arezzo, an altarpiece panel in the Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, had long been attributed to the lesser Florentine artist, Lorenzo di Credi. But according Laurence Kanter, chief curator of the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut, aspects of the painting, commissioned in 1475, bear the unmistakable stamp of Leonardo. Kanter told the Observer that “at least half” of the painting is by the Renaissance master, with the rest by Lorenzo. He said that Leonardo’s authorship had been discounted because his artistic style was yet to mature. “We have assumed that a thing by him has to look like his late works, and that he therefore had no beginnings. That, of course, is totally implausible,” said Kanter. The painting, measuring 16.6cm by 33.5cm, was created for the cathedral of Pistoia in Tuscany. It depicts Saint Donatus helping a tax collector, falsely accused of theft, locate money that his deceased wife had hidden for safekeeping. The altarpiece, created in memory of Bishop Donato de’ Medici, was commissioned from Andrea del Verrocchio, in whose Florentine workshop Leonardo and Lorenzo were apprenticed. Kanter added: “I do think it’s an early work by Leonardo, that there are at least seven other paintings around the world to be recognised at least in part by him, as part of his training in Verrocchio’s workshop.” He will now include it in this summer’s major Yale exhibition, entitled “Leonardo: Discoveries from Verrocchio’s Studio”. Kanter attributes the figure on the left of the painting to Lorenzo, describing it as “flat” with draperies that “don’t work”, although its head and torso may be by Leonardo. The other figure is “perfectly realised”, with flecks of light on the yellow lining of his cloak conveyed in Leonardo’s style, he said. The landscape is also by Leonardo, according to Kanter: “Knowing what I do about painters of that moment, there’s only one artist in Florence on this level, and that’s Leonardo.” The extensive research into the painting has involved Worcester’s chief conservator, Rita Albertson, and Bruno Mottin, a chief curator of the French national museums.Albertson said that in 1940 the painting was part of a collection donated to Worcester by local benefactors who believed it was by Leonardo when they bought it from a London dealer. Controversial American art historian Bernard Berenson was among those who downgraded it to Lorenzo “on the basis of a black and white photograph”.
A 16.5 x 33.5 cm altarpiece panel in the Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, attributed until now to Lorenzo di Credi, is now believed to be at least partly painted by Leonardo da Vinci. Commissioned in 1475 when both artists were apprentices at Florence’s studio in Verrocchio, the panel was gifted to the museum in 1940 by local benefactors who believed it was by da Vinci, however it was downgraded by a group of American art historians. The panel, depicting Saint Donatus helping a tax collector, will go on display at Yale in the summer.