A rare drawing done by legendary artist, Leonardo da Vinci, is expected to be sold for $16 million.
It’s the last to be sold, and its price is in the millions. According to Yahoo! Entertainment, Da Vinci’s drawing – believed to be 500 years old – is about to be auctioned off this Thursday. The 2.75 by 2.75-inch drawing is known as “Head of a Bear.”
“An exquisite demonstration of Leonardo da Vinci’s unsurpassed mastery as a draughtsman and of his ground-breaking attitude towards the study of nature, this penetrating study of a bear’s head is one of a very small number of drawings by him still in private hands,” Christie’s, the auction house, said in a statement on its website.
The auction house says the painting was created with a technique called “silverpoint,” a thin silver stylus applied directly to treated paper. It was a skill da Vinci learned him his master, Andrea del Verrocchio. The drawing is one of four creations da Vinci made. The other three are drawings of a bear walking, a dog’s paw, and a cat and a dog.
British painter and collector Sir Thomas Lawrence previously owned the drawing, and then it was sold at Christie’s in 1860 for 2.5 pounds ($3.4), CNBC reports.
