The last da Vinci

On Wednesday night, someone will get the opportunity to own this painting when it goes up for auction through Christie’s in New York City. It’s guaranteed to sell for at least $100 million, meaning the auction house will make up the difference if it doesn't. This is one of only 16 known surviving paintings (including the “Mona Lisa”) by da Vinci.  The others are scattered around the world’s museums.

It was once thought to be a copy, and dropped off the grid for centuries before resurfacing in Louisiana in 2005. New York-based art collector Robert Simon and art dealer Alexander Parish purchased it there for $10,000. The piece was thick with overpaint, meaning artists had added paint to the existing image as a means of either modernizing or improving it.

In 2007, a professor of paintings conservation at New York University set about carefully restoring the portrait, which they still believed to be a copy.  She chipped away at the varnish and paint obscuring the original, and after intense scrutiny, the art community reached the consensus this was a bona fide da Vinci, an unimaginable discovery.

Speaking of da Vinci, here's a less serious visual subject from his notebook:

 The wonderful translation:

"The proportions of the Dachshund figure seem mathematically implausible, with an incongruously long torso region and very short arms and legs. Surprisingly fine-boned and even graceful shins while the haunch is rounded and even meaty (seen more in some specimens than others). 

A fifth appendage, the "tail" often moves of its own accord. Travel on all four legs is preferred mode of locomotion as subject has a tendency to topple whilst walking upright. In males parts seem perilously low for travel up stairs and other inclines, esp. in aforementioned portly specimens. 

The elongated face of the Dachshund ends in a wet, leathery snout, which is often engaged in inquisitive activity, while the tongue is companionably close at hand - also wet, but not as leathery. Eyes are deeply expressive and effective at communication, which is fortunate as assorted yaps, barks and whines would otherwise indicate rather primitive language skills."  

Marji and Dad, sound familiar?