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  3. Bianca Sforza attracted few stares when introduced to the art world on Janua

Bianca Sforza attracted few stares when introduced to the art world on Janua

游客2023-12-07  24
问题     Bianca Sforza attracted few stares when introduced to the art world on January 30, 1998. She was just a pretty face in a frame to the crowd at a Christie’s auction in New York City. Nobody knew her name at the time, or the name of the artist who had made the portrait. The catalog listed the work—a colored chalk-and-ink drawing on vellum—as early 19th century and German, with borrowed Renaissance styling. A New York dealer, Kate Ganz, purchased the picture for $21,850.
    The price hadn’t budged almost ten years later when a Canadian collector, Peter Silverman, saw Bianca’s profile in Ganz’s gallery and promptly bought it. The drawing might actually date from the Renaissance, he thought. Ganz herself had mentioned Leonardo da Vinci, that magical name, as an influence on the artist. Silverman came to wonder, "What if this is the work of the great Leonardo himself?"
    That someone could walk into a gallery and buy a drawing that turns out to be a previously unknown Leonardo masterpiece, worth perhaps $ 100 million, seems pure urban myth. Discovery of a Leonardo is truly rare. At the time of Silverman’s purchase, it had been more than 75 years since the last authentication of one of the master’s paintings. There was no record that the creator of the "Mona Lisa" ever made a major work on vellum, no known copies, no preparatory drawings. If this image was an authentic Leonardo, where had it been hiding for 500 years?
    Silverman emailed a digital image of Bianca to Martin Kemp. Emeritus professor of art history at Oxford University and a renowned Leonardo scholar, Kemp regularly receives images, sometimes two a week, from people he calls "Leonardo loonies," convinced they have discovered a New York. "My reflex is to say, No!" Kemp told me. But the "uncanny vitality" in the young woman’s face made him want a closer look. He flew to Zurich, where Silverman kept the drawing in a vault. "When I saw it," Kemp said, "I experienced a kind of frisson, a feeling that this is not normal."
    That initial shiver of excitement compelled Kemp to embark on his own investigation. He was aided by high-resolution multispectral scans by Pascal Cotte of Lumiere Technology in Paris, allowing Kemp to study the drawing’s layers, from first strokes to later restorations. The more Kemp looked with his connoisseur’s eye, the more he saw what he considered evidence of Leonardo’s hand—how the hair bunched beneath the strings holding it in place, the beautiful modulation of colors, the precise lines. The expression conveyed Leonardo’s maxim that a portrait should reveal "motion of the mind."
    Kemp also needed proof that the portrait had been made during Leonardo’s lifetime(1452—1519)and that its historical particulars fit the artist’s biography. The vellum, probably calfskin, had been carbon-dated, its origin placed somewhere between 1440 and 1650. Costume research revealed that the sitter belonged specifically to the Milanese court of the 1490s, with its fashion for elaborately bound hair. Leonardo lived in Milan during this time, accepting commissions for court portraits.
    Kemp’s detective work led him to a name, Bianca Sforza. An illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Milan, she was married in 1496 to Galeazzo Sanseverino, commander of the Milanese troops and a patron of Leonardo’s. Bianca was 13 or 14 at the time of the portrait. Tragically, she died a few months later, likely from an ectopic pregnancy. Kemp named the drawing "La Bella Principessa," the beautiful princess.
    In 2010 Kemp and Cotte published their findings in a book. Several prominent Leonardo scholars agreed, others were skeptical. Carmen Bambach was quoted as saying that the portrait simply "does not look like a Leonardo." Doubt seemed to collect around the portrait’s sudden, almost miraculous appearance. Where had it come from?
    Kemp didn’t know. Then, almost like divine intervention, a message came from D. R.Edward Wright, emeritus professor of art history at the University of South Florida. Having followed the very public dispute, Wright suggested to Kemp, whom he had never met, that his answer might lie in the National Library of Poland in Warsaw, inside a book called the Sforziad.
    Funded by a National Geographic Society grant, Kemp and Cotte traveled to Warsaw. Cotte’s macrophotography revealed that a folio had been removed from the exact place in the Sforziad where a portrait would have been added. The moment arrived when they inserted a copy of Bianca’s portrait into the open book. It fit perfectly. For Kemp, this was the clincher: " ’La Bella Principessa’ was a one-off portrait by Leonardo that had gone into a book and then onto a shelf."  [br] According to the passage, Bianca Sfroza is
选项 A、a woman who stepped into the field of art on January 30,1998.
B、a beautiful woman attending a Christie’s auction in New York City.
C、thought to be drawn in early 19th century by a German.
D、suspected by Kate Ganz as a masterpiece of Leonardo.
答案 C
解析 细节题。由题干中Bianca Sfroza定位至文章开头。由第一段倒数第二句“The catalogue listed thework…as early 19th century and German…”可知，拍卖会主办方将其当作十九世纪德国的作品收入目录，因此[C]正确。
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