May 23, 2024

New Leonardos at the Hermitage?


New Leonardos at the Hermitage?
An alternate version of Leonardo's "Virgin of the Rocks," which is currently on display at the Louvre. Evgenii Zolotarev / BBC

An exhibit at the Hermitage claims to be displaying paintings determined to have been created by Leonardo da Vinci. But international experts agreed: these paintings were not touched by the Renaissance master. 

The exhibit, entitled "New Mysteries of the Paintings of Leonardo da Vinci," was partly financed and organized by Konstantin Goloshchapov, an influential St. Petersburg businessman and apparent close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Goloshchapov collects religious art and provided several of the paintings displayed in the Hermitage exhibit. The Hermitage website describes the exhibit as being created "in collaboration" with the scholars Carlo Pedretti and Luca Tomio. One minor issue: Pedretti has been dead since 2018, and Tomio has no academic or institutional affiliations backing up his research. 

The paintings newly attributed to Leonardo, "The Battle of Anghiari" and "The Virgin of the Rocks" are a variation and version, respectively, of works located at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence and the Louvre in Paris. While it is not unheard of for works of art to be reattributed after extensive research and study by experts, or for variations of famous paintings to be discovered, these paintings are near universally considered to not be by Leonardo. 

“Not a single serious researcher, that is, a qualified expert on Leonardo’s work, will support such an attribution," Frank Zöllner, a professor at Leipzig University, told BBC Russia. 

You Might Also Like

Hermitage Cats
  • March 09, 2006

Hermitage Cats

A look at the cats that guard one of the world's great museums.
Worthy of Aivazovsky's Brush
  • September 19, 2021

Worthy of Aivazovsky's Brush

If you love the sea, Ivan Aivazovsky is your man. Everyone should know about this Armenian-Russian painter.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.
Fish: A History of One Migration

Fish: A History of One Migration

This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955