半路殺出個程咬金 達芬奇疑作迷霧重重

For people who buy, sell or collect old art, the hope of unearthing a new work by a big name is a motivating dream. And names don’t come much bigger than that of Leonardo da Vinci.

對於買賣和收藏古老藝術品的人們來說，發掘著名大師的未知作品堪稱鼓舞人心的夢想，而最有名的大師恐怕莫過於列奧納多·達·芬奇(Leonardo da Vinci)了。

For eight years, the Canadian collector Peter Silverman, who lives in Paris, has been trying to convince the art world that a drawing of an aristocratic young woman he bought for around $20,000 is a long-lost masterpiece by Leonardo, potentially worth as much as $150 million. Now the controversy surrounding the drawing, “La Bella Principessa,” has taken a new turn. Shaun Greenhalgh, the notorious British art forger who is thought to have created fakes that spanned centuries of art history, has declared it to be his work.

八年來，現居巴黎的加拿大收藏家彼得·席爾瓦曼(Peter Silverman)一直都在試圖說服藝術界，自己手上有一幅遺失已久的達·芬奇真跡，這幅貴族年輕女子的肖像名爲《美麗的公主》(La Bella Principessa)，是他花大約二萬美元買來的，可能價值1.5億美元。現在，圍繞着這幅畫作的爭議又進入到新的一輪。臭名昭著的英國藝術品僞造者紹恩·格林哈爾(Shaun Greenhalgh)所仿造的贗品跨越藝術史上的幾個世紀，如今他聲稱這幅畫是自己的作品。

Mr. Greenhalgh says the subject was not an Italian noblewoman, but a check-out girl named Alison who worked at a supermarket in Bolton outside Manchester in northwest England.

格林哈爾說，圖上的女人不是什麼意大利貴婦，而是英格蘭西北部曼徹斯特市郊外博爾頓某超市內一個名叫艾莉森(Alison)的女收銀員。

That sensational claim emerged on Nov. 29 in an article in The Sunday Times by the art critic Waldemar Januszczak, who is part of a consortium that has just published a memoir by Mr. Greenhalgh, “A Forger’s Tale.” Mr. Greenhalgh, who in 2007 was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison on forgery-related charges, was responsible for a number of well-documented fakes, including a Gauguin sculpture of a faun bought by the Art Institute of Chicago and an Egyptian alabaster sculpture of a princess purchased by the Bolton Museum. Now he has added “La Bella Principessa” to the list.

這個聳人聽聞的聲明出現在11月29日的《星期日泰晤士報》(The Sunday Times)的一篇文章裏，作者是藝術評論家瓦爾德馬爾·雅努茨扎克(Waldemar Januszczak)，他所隸屬的財團剛剛出版了格林哈爾的回憶錄《僞造者的故事》(A Forger’s Tale)。格林哈爾因涉及僞造藝術品，於2007年被判入獄四年零八個月。他所仿造的藝術品包括一尊高更的農神雕像，被芝加哥藝術學院購買；以及一尊古埃及公主的大理石像，被波士頓博物館購買。如今他把《美麗的公主》也加入了這個名單。

Mr. Januszczak says Mr. Greenhalgh was about 20 years old when he made “La Principessa,” while he was working at the supermarket in the late 1970s.

雅努茨扎克說，格林哈爾創作《美麗的公主》時20歲左右，當時是20世紀70年代末期，他在那個超市上班。

“To draw her he says he bought an old land deed that had been written on vellum, and finding the ‘good’ side to be too ink-stained to use, turned it over and drew on the rough side instead, as Leonardo would never have done,” Mr. Januszczak wrote in The Sunday Times.

“他說，爲了給她畫像，他買來了一張舊地契，是用上等羊皮紙做成的，上面寫了字，他發現，紙張‘好’的那一面上有太多墨水字跡，所以就把它翻過來，在粗糙的一面上畫畫，列奧納多從來不這麼做，”雅努茨扎克在《星期日泰晤士報》的文中寫道。

Mr. Greenhalgh was unavailable to comment.

格林哈爾先生未能置評。

“It’s ludicrous and absurd,” Mr. Silverman said in a telephone interview. “It’s shameless that an art historian should stoop to that level to promote his book.”

“這太滑稽，太荒唐了，”席爾瓦曼先生電話採訪中說，“一個藝術史學家爲了宣傳新書，竟然做出這麼有失身份的事，真是無恥之極。”

Mr. Silverman said he would pay Mr. Greenhalgh 10,000 pounds, about $15,000, if he could reproduce “La Bella Principessa” on vellum in front of a committee of experts. “And he goes back to jail where he belongs if he doesn’t,” he said.

席爾瓦曼說，他願意付格林哈爾1萬英鎊（約合1.5萬美元），看他能不能當着一個專家委員會的面，在羊皮紙上重新畫出《美麗的公主》來。“要是他畫不出來，就回監獄呆着去吧，”他說。

The story of “La Bella Principessa” and its attribution started in January 1998, when Kate Ganz, an art dealer in New York, bought a hea·or $21,850 with fees at Christie’s in New York. Executed in pen, ink, chalk and watercolor on vellum, it was cataloged by Christie’s as “early 19th century, possibly German.”

《美麗的公主》及其作者鑑定的故事始於1998年1月，紐約藝術品交易商凱特·岡茲(Kate Ganz)以21850美元（含交易費）的價格，從紐約佳士得買來了這幅身穿意大利文藝復興時期服飾的年輕貴族女子的半身側面像。這幅畫以鋼筆、墨水、粉筆和水彩在羊皮紙上繪製而成，被佳士得標記爲“19世紀初，可能是德國作品。”

Nine years later, in January 2007, Ms. Ganz sold the drawing, which she described as “based on a number of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and may have been made by a German artist studying in Italy,” to Mr. Silverman for the original purchase price, minus a dealer’s discount.

9年後的2007年1月，岡茲把這幅畫以原價減交易商折扣的價格賣給了席爾瓦曼，她當時對它的描述是，“可能是一個在意大利學習的德國藝術家根據一幅列奧納多·達·芬奇的畫臨摹的”。

In June 2008, Lumière Technology, a company in Paris that specializes in digital scanning, announced that its analysis had determined that the portrait was by Leonardo. The work was subsequently valued at 100 million by the London art dealer Dickinson, who offered it for sale to selected clients. Timothy Clifford, a director of the National Galleries of Scotland from 1984 to 2006 who joined Dickinson as an adviser in 2007, declared the drawing a genuine Leonardo in an article in The Times of London in October 2009.

2008年6月，法國數碼掃描公司“光明技術公司”(Lumière Technology)聲稱，經分析，公司認爲這幅畫是出自列奧納多本人之手。因此，這幅作品被倫敦藝術品交易公司迪金森(Dickinson)標價爲一億英鎊，並向高級客戶提供這幅作品的出售。蒂莫西·克利福德(Timothy Clifford)於1984年到2006年擔任蘇格蘭國家藝術館館長，2007年出任迪金森的顧問，2009年10月，他在《倫敦泰晤士報》上發表文章，認爲這幅畫是列奧納多的真跡。

The attribution has also been endorsed by a half-dozen Leonardo scholars. Martin Kemp, an emeritus professor in art history at Oxford University who began researching the work in 2005, was an early convert, identifying the sitter as Bianca Giovanna Sforza, the illegitimate daughter of Ludovico Sforza, the duke of Milan from 1494 to 1499.

這個結論還得到了半打列奧納多專家的背書。馬丁·肯普(Martin Kemp)是牛津大學的藝術史榮退教授，他從2005年開始研究這幅作品，是最早相信它是真跡的人之一，他認爲畫面上的人是比安卡·喬萬娜·斯福爾扎(Bianca Giovanna Sforza)，是於1494年至1499年任米蘭公爵的盧多維克·斯福爾扎(Ludovico Sforza)的私生女。

Research by Mr. Kemp and Pascal Cotte, a co-founder of Lumière, suggested that the drawing had been removed from a Sforza family album, now in the National Library in Warsaw, made to celebrate the 1496 marriage of Bianca to the Milanese military commander Galeazzo Sanseverino.

肯普與光明技術公司的聯合創建者之一帕斯卡·科特(Pascal Cotte)認爲，這幅畫是從斯福爾扎家族的畫冊中被拿出去的，該畫冊於1496年製作，是爲了慶祝比安卡與米蘭軍事指揮官加里亞佐·桑瑟夫內洛(Galeazzo Sanseverino)的聯姻，目前收藏於華沙國家圖書館。

Those developments prompted the owner of the drawing when Christie’s sold it to Ms. Ganz, Jeanne Marchig, the widow of the artist and restorer Giannino Marchig, to sue Christie’s for breaches of fiduciary duty and of warranty, as well as negligence and negligent misrepresentation, claiming they should have known it was a Leonardo.

佳士得把作品出售給岡茲時，該畫像的主人是藝術家與藝術品修復家詹尼諾·馬奇格(Giannino Marchig)的遺孀珍娜·馬奇格(Jeanne Marchig)，因爲這一事態的發展，她起訴佳士得公司違反信託與擔保責任，以及疏忽和做出草率鑑定，她主張，佳士得本應鑑定出那是列奧納多的真跡。

The suit was rejected by a United States appeals court in 2011 on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired. In a separate suit against Christie’s, concerning the loss of the drawing’s frame, Ms. Marchig stated that the drawing had been in her husband’s collection by 1955, long before Mr. Greenhalgh is supposed to have made it.

該訴訟於2011年被美國一上訴法庭以訴訟時效過期而拒絕。在另一項起訴佳士得遺失了這幅作品的邊框的訴訟中，馬奇格女士指出，這幅畫於1955年便歸她丈夫所有，遠遠早於格林哈爾聲稱的創作時間。

As a Leonardo, “La Bella Principessa” has yet to win over the art establishment. The work has not been shown in any major national museum, and it was not included in the landmark exhibition “Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan” at the National Gallery in London from November 2011 to February 2012.

藝術界權威尚未徹底認可《美麗的公主》是列奧納多的真跡。這幅作品還未在任何大型國家級博物館展出，2011年11月至2012年2月於倫敦國家博物館舉辦的重大展覽“列奧納多·達·芬奇：米蘭宮廷時期畫作”(Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan)也沒有收入這幅作品。

That show did, however, include a recently rediscovered Leonardo, “Christ as Salvator Mundi,” circa 1499, which was bought in 2013 by the Russian collector Dmitry E. Rybolovlev for $127.5 million from Yves Bouvier, a Swiss businessman and art dealer.

不過，那次展覽確實收入了一幅新近發現的列奧納多作品：《救世主基督》(Chirist as Salvator Mundi)，創作時間約在1499年，是2013年俄羅斯收藏家德米特里·E·雷波諾列夫(Dmitry E. Rybolovlev)以1.275億美元從瑞士商人與藝術交易商伊夫·布維爾(Yves Bouvier)手中買下的。

Mr. Rybolovlev sued Mr. Bouvier after discovering that he had paid the sellers, the New York dealers Alexander Parish and Robert Simon, between $75 million and $80 million for the work.

後來雷波諾列夫發現，爲這幅作品，布維爾只付給賣主紐約交易商亞歷山大·巴利什(Alexander Parish)與羅伯特·西蒙(Robert Simon)7500萬到8000萬美元左右，便對布維爾發起了訴訟。

Last Tuesday, meanwhile, Kasia Pisarek, an independent art historian who specializes in attribution, became the latest scholar to make a case against a Leonardo “Principessa.” In a paper presented at a conference in London, she ran down a checklist of what she termed “inconsistencies” — the lack of any documentation or copies, the presence of just three stitch-holes in the side of the vellum sheet ( the Sforza volume in Warsaw has five) and what she saw as anatomically incorrect quality of the drawing itself.

上週二，專門鑑定藝術品作者的獨立藝術史學家卡西婭·皮薩萊克(Kasia Pisarek)成了最新一位爲列奧納多的《美麗的公主》發起訴訟的學者。她在倫敦的一次聽證會上呈送文件，列舉了這份作品的“矛盾清單”——它沒有任何相關文件記載，也沒有複製品、羊皮紙邊上只有三個裝訂孔（華沙收錄的斯福爾扎家族畫冊有五個裝訂孔），還有她眼中其他一些不符合真跡特質的細節。

Her conclusion was that “the present attribution to Leonardo must be deemed unreliable.”

她的結論是，“列奧納多是作者這個結論是站不住腳的。”

The drawing itself is at the Geneva Freeport storage warehouse and is not for sale, Mr. Silverman said, who added that in 2012 he had been offered $60 million for it but had rejected the offer. “I want the drawing to be shown all over the world so that people can decide for themselves,” he said. “But the experts who won’t accept it have refused to see it. Bureaucrats don’t like to take a chance. They’re afraid of controversy.”

席爾瓦曼先生說，這幅畫作目前被存放在日內瓦自由港，不做出售之用，他還補充說，2012年，有人曾經出價6000萬美元，但被他拒絕了。“我希望這幅畫能在全世界展出，讓人們自己來判斷，”他說，“但是那些不接受它的專家們拒絕看它。官僚主義者們不願把握機會，他們害怕爭議。”

By various accounts, then, it would seem that “La Bella Principessa” is either a real Leonardo worth tens of millions; a 19th-century Italian Renaissance style drawing worth tens of thousands; or a modern fake worth hardly anything at all.

出於種種原因，這幅《美麗的公主》要麼就是價值數千萬的列奧納多真跡；要麼就是價值數萬美元的19世紀意大利文藝復興風格作品；再不就是一文不值的現代贗品。

But adding characters like Shaun Greenhalgh and Alison from the supermarket into the mix will liven up the debate — and make it ever more difficult to discern what the scientifically minded Leonardo would have recognized as the truth.

但是隨着紹恩·格林哈爾與“超市艾莉森”等人捲入混戰，爭議無疑進一步升級了；列奧納多是個相信科學的人，如今，要找到他渴求的真相，更是難上加難。