More than an year ago I posted this article from a german historian about a self-portrait of Leonardo Da Vinci kept in the Art Gallery of Washington, but the painting is wrongly atributed by the curators of the same Gallery to a later and less known painter, Cariani.
The portrait was already in a bad state and as the curators of the gallery underestimates its value they do not care much for restoring (anyway, even if it was a Cariani or another, is not a reason to let it decay ! ! !)
Confronted to the indiference and the arrogance of the self-labelled "art historians" of the Gallery, the author wrote them this open-letter yesterday, August 6th 2007, hoping it will estimulate the appropiated reactions :
Folgenden offenen Brief habe ich am 6. August 2007 an die National Gallery of Art in Washington geschickt:
Dear Mr. Hand,
regarding the following two further portraits at the National Gallery of Art:
“A Young Woman and her little Boy” (have a look at: http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?1146+0+0)
and
“Portrait of a Man with a Dog” (http://www.kleio.org/leonardo/leonardo9.htm) I feel compelled to write to you again.
The first painting “A young woman and her little boy” shows the eldest legitimate daughter of Cosimo de’ Medici and his wife Eleonora of Toledo, Maria de’ Medici (1540-1557), and her little brother Antonio (1544-1548). The painting was made around 1557. Please have a look at my family-tree of the Medici in Pictures: http://www.kleio.org/bilderkatalog/medici_eng.html, which is already used in the Medici Archives and the Medici Project in Florence.
As I mentioned to you before, there is no problem to assign the portraits of the members of the high nobility to the respective members of the dynasties, once you have familiarized yourself with the history of the costume, the dynasties themselves and their emblems and symbols.
Regarding the second painting, “Portrait of a Man with a Dog”, wrongly attributed to Cariani, I have written many e-mails to your Gallery since 2004, but I never received an answer. Dear Mr. Hand, you may not be aware of it, but let me assure you, the National Gallery of Art is in possession of the only known self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci! It is a pity that this painting has disappeared in your archives and does not receive the attention it deserves.
I wonder why that is. Who is responsible for the false attribution of this painting to Cariani? What facts is it based upon? I would like to challenge that person for a discussion on that attribution. I know I am right and I can prove it. I can provide a large number of facts and not just speculations which make it clear that the depicted is the great Leonardo himself. Please note that for a serious discussion on this matter it is essential to be familiar with the history of the costume, the history of the Renaissance and their dynasties, especially the Visconti and Sforza in Milan, the life of Leonardo da Vinci and the emblems and symbols of the high nobility in Italy.
Please, read the following article regarding this painting of yours at my following website: http://www.kleio.org/leonardo/leonardoE2.htm
Kind regards, Maike Vogt-Lüerssen