For many years at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art on one wall hung portraits of the famous Juan de Parejo (Juan de Pareja) and the Infanta Maria Theresa, by the famous Spanish painter Diego Velázquez (Diego Velazquez), and also a portrait of an unknown man with a mustache at the age of 35 years. This sheet was received by the museum's collection in 1949 as a work of Velazquez, but after some time has been attributed simply «the artist's studio». Now, after a new study, curator of the department of European painting Metropolitan Keith Christiansen (Keith Christiansen) and conservative Michael Gallagher (Michael Gallagher) came to the conclusion that the film really belongs to the brush of Velasquez.

«She tormented me for 25 years. The quality of this work is beyond doubt. And it was hard to believe that the product of this level was created just in the studio », - recognized Christiansen.

However, the expert was indeed reason to doubt the authorship. Decades old canvas obscuring layers of varnish. In 1920 the painting was restored in 1953 is covered with varnish, and then again zalakirovana in 1965. In the 1960's well-known expert attributed now «artist's studio», and by 1979, Velasquez authorship questioned and in the museum itself.

But recently, the Metropolitan began to carry out cataloging available in the collection of works by Spanish artists, and Keith Christiansen turned to Michael Gallagher, that he again checked the portrait. The picture was carefully examined, thoroughly cleaned and conserved. And then from beneath layers of old yellowed varnish stood out smears made of the hand of Velasquez.

After that, Keith Christiansen showed a portrait of one of the leading experts on creativity Velázquez Jonathan Brown (Jonathan Brown), and he clearly confirmed the authorship. «This was quite a sight, - explained Brown. - And this picture was right under my very nose of a lifetime. It's just a fantastic discovery ».

This finding is particularly valuable for another reason, that Velazquez created not so much works. According to various estimates, the entire world there are about 110-120 paintings of the masters.

history of this portrait is very well known. He bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum collector Bashe Jules (Jules Bache), before the Second World War, the head of U.S. brokerage office. He bought the picture in 1926 a well-known antiquarian Joseph Dyuvina (Joseph Duveen) as a self-portrait by Velazquez. For him Bashe paid 1,125 million - an enormous sum for those times (about 13 million by today's standards). Now, experts estimate its value at $ 40 million.

Before Dyuvina painting belonged to Count Johann Ludwig von Vallmoden-Gimborn, the illegitimate son of British King George II, and then the last king of Hanover, George V. All this, of course, affect the price of the product.

The person depicted in the portrait of a man, his eyes and nose shape has some resemblance to a character that is present in the painting by Velazquez «Surrender of Breda», which was created around the same time as the portrait of a man with a mustache. Then the artist was 35 years old. But nobody can say for sure that the figure in the «surrender of Breda» and the man in the portrait - is the author himself. Other available images of the artist, for example in «Menin», belong to a later time.

According to Keith Christiansen, the version of the self-portrait is not so unbelievable. Curator even offered to arrange a blog or a site survey of the museum, where users could vote for or against this version.

article prepared by Catherine Onuchina, AI

Sources: nytimes.com , artinvestment.ru