Paris: A long-lost drawing by Leonardo da Vinci valued at €15 million ($21 million) and owned by a retired French doctor has been unveiled in Paris.
Paris auctioneer Tajan said there was no doubt the "extraordinary discovery" was one of eight drawings of the martyred Saint Sebastian mentioned in the Codex Atlanticus, a list compiled by the Italian Renaissance genius.
![Thaddee Prate, director of old master pictures at the French Tajan auction house.](/web/20161217063520im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/a/n/1/1/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtam6e.png/1481671278814.jpg)
It is the first Leonardo work to resurface in more than 15 years, the auctioneer said.
Thaddee Prate, director of old master pictures at Tajan, recalled being in a "bit of a rush" when the doctor knocked on the door of the auction house in March and pulled out the 7½-by-five inch drawing from a portfolio of 15 unframed pictures that had belonged to his father.
![A long-lost drawing of the martyred St Sebastian by Leonardo da Vinci.](/web/20161217063520im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/a/m/x/n/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gtam6e.png/1481671278814.jpg)
Mr Prate spotted a striking pen-and-ink study of St Sebastian tied to a tree, with the inscription "Michelange" (Michelangelo).
"I had a sense that it was an interesting 16th-century drawing that required more work," Mr Prate told The New York Times, which was shown the work last week.
Mr Prate, 55, asked for a second opinion from Patrick de Bayser, an independent dealer and adviser in old master drawings, who examined the St Sebastian in Paris and instantly saw it was by a left-handed artist, such as Leonardo.
Tajan then sought a third view - from Carmen Bambach, a curator of Italian and Spanish drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
![<i>Virgin of the Rocks</i> by da Vinci.](/web/20161217063520im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/a/n/2/d/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gtam6e.png/1481671278814.jpg)
When shown the work, Dr Bambach said: "My eyes jumped out of their sockets.
"The attribution is quite incontestable," she said, even though there is no traceable pre-20th century ownership history.
"What we have here is an open-and-shut case. It's an exciting discovery," she told The New York Times.
She dates the drawing at 1482 to 1485, during the early phase of Leonardo's period in Milan, when he painted his first version of The Virgin of the Rocks, now in the Louvre.
The highest price to date for a Leonardo drawing sold at auction is $US11.5 million, at Christie's in 2001, for a silverpoint study of a horse and rider.
On realising the discovery, Mr Prate asked the owner: "I hope you're not shocked?"
"I'm very pleased," the owner calmly responded. "But I have other interests in life other than money."
Telegraph, London