British forger claims ‘Da Vinci masterpiece’ as his own work

In his recently published autobiography, British forger Shaun Greenhalgh claims to have painted the ‘Portrait of a Young Fiancée’, which has been widely attributed to the Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci.

Royal Villa Reale, Monza. Image by xlibber / CC BY 2.0

Greenhalgh claims to have created the artwork, which currently hangs in Monza’s Royal Villa Reale, in 1978 whilst working at his local supermarket. He claims that the girl shown in the painting was based on a checkout worker called Sally and that he used wood, chalk and canvas that was hundreds of years old to make the painting appear older than it actually was. Read more: thelocal.it