Chemical analysis of a painting of the Roman emperor Domitian has thrown light on the mystery of who painted it. Interest in its provenance dates back to the discovery, hidden below Domitian’s right arm in a blackened area, of these words: L da Vinci. Pinxt.
Could it be an unknown Leonardo da Vinci painting? This is what two siblings, the owners of the painting who wish to remain anonymous, have wondered for over 30 years. When they inherited the Domitian in 1994, they chanced upon the faint inscription beneath centuries of soot. ‘At first there was a certain sense of excitement – almost of celebration,’ they explain. ‘We were naive enough to imagine that the question might be resolved relatively quickly, perhaps within a few months.’
The siblings say the painting has been in their family since 1938 when their grandfather bought it at auction. Previously, before the trail goes cold, Christie’s auction house listed it for sale in the 1920s as a work of Titian, another Renaissance master.
Historians agree that Titian never painted Domitian. But he did paint a famous series called The Eleven Caesars. Painted between 1536 and 1540 for an Italian duke, years after Leonardo’s death in 1519, it comprised portraits of the first eleven Roman emperors. Titian took inspiration from a 121AD Roman biography The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, but sources suggest that Titian’s intention was only ever to paint 11 emperors.
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