Ernst Ullmann Boeken

Missed for 500 years the concetto (draft) of the Virgin of the rocks by Leonardo da Vinci rediscovered. The painting has been exhibited at the beginning of the 20th century at a museum in Graz/Styria and was regarded as a copy of Leonardos painting. Sold after the war by the counts Attems, the owners, it fell into oblivion. An acknowledged art historian Prof. Ernst Ullmann at the University of Leipzig, author of an important monography about Leonardo (several reprints) proved however, assisted by the Viennese restorator Ernst Lux, that the painting is in fact the concetto (draft) of Leonardos masterpiece Virgin of the rocks, existing in two Versions in Paris and London. Ullmann used not only stylistic criteria but also technical investigatious and modern scientific analysis. He also proved the confounded identity of the two depicted children, Jesus and St. John, against the current and false opinion.