French auction house Tajan has announced the discovery of a long-lost drawing by the Italian Master Leonardo da Vinci – the first discovery in more than 15 years. In a press release, Tajan states that it believes the work, which depicts “The Martyred Saint Sebastian,” belongs to a group of eight San Sebastians mentioned in Da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus.An article in the New York Times states that Tajan has valued the work at 15 million euros, or about $15.8 million. Tajan says that it has consulted with Dr. Carmen C. Bambach, a world-renowned expert on Leonardo drawings and Curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, to authenticate the work.Tajan has provided the following statement from The Metropolitan Museum of Art:“In the scholarly opinion of Carmen C. Bambach, our expert on the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, this is an exciting new discovery of an authentic double-sided sheet by the master (1452-1519), representing on the recto the full figure of the martyred Saint Sebastian tied to a tree in a landscape, and on the verso, notes and diagrams about light and shadow, which relate to Leonardo’s study of optics.Dr. Bambach published the related drawings of Saint Sebastian in Hamburg and Bayonne in the 2003 catalogue accompanying her exhibition Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman at The Met. In a soon-to-be-published article, Dr. Bambach will discuss the complex scientific material, related works of art, and larger implications of this discovery, along with new research.“
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