A painting previously believed to be a copy of a work by Raphael looks likely to be the real thing.
The piece is a portrait of the Madonna and dates to between 1505 and 1510.
 The painting was found at Haddo House in Scotland |
Historian Bendor Grosvenor discovered the piece while touring Haddo House in Scotland for an upcoming BBC TV show.
Grosvenor told the Guardian newspaper: "I thought, crikey, it looks like a Raphael…
"It was very dirty under old varnish, which goes yellow… Being an anorak, I go round houses like this with binoculars and torches. If I hadn't done that, I'd probably have walked past it."
It transpires the work had originally been bought as a Raphael but was later downgraded to a work painted in his style by another artist, Innocenzo da Imola.
However Grosvenor felt the quality of the work was too high to be a piece by da Imola.
Subsequent investigations have revealed tell-tale signs that the work is an original rather than a copy. The positioning of a finger has been changed, indicating that the design was altered during the drawing stage.
It also matches other portraits of the Madonna by Raphael.
The work was valued at £20 in 1899, when thought to be a copy. That's around £2,000 ($2,554) today. If it does turn out to be by Raphael, it could be worth as much as £20m ($25.5m).
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