Leonardo Da Vinci Lost Drawing Discovered | Hacker News Reader

Leonardo Da Vinci Lost Drawing Discovered

nytimes.com

125 pointsMz26 comments

Although I am not at all a connoisseur in this area i know that counterfeits are relatively frequent - especially when we're talking about $15.8 million.

What is especially noticeable to me is the back which assigns that sheet to Leonardo da Vinci, being most likely original but would hardly sell for a price that high.

The front on the other side is - almost too perfect - too unbelievable, to good to be true.

Exactly, this reminds me of a podcast from last year about how a master artist forged sketches/drawings and fooled the experts to prove he was just as good [1]. What is the likelihood that this was really just found in a book?

[1] http://www.npr.org/2015/12/01/457232855/how-the-brain-tells-...

Part of me is kind of happy that the whole "era of experts" has come to an end- We've all just seen too many f-ups by experts to take such people as a whole too seriously (the downside of course is that often experts really do have better answers than laypeople)

In what way has it come to an end? In this article, I see only experts deciding on whether it is a Leonardo or not.

Im not sure what you mean by the 'Era of Experts', much less it coming to an end. Can you explain this further?

Im all for making people come out of their ivory towers a bit more but to suggest that having high levels of knowledge in a given subject is somehow a negative seems an odd position to take. But maybe Im reading you wrong?

We are living in the post-truth era. I may be reading the parent's comment wrong but I find it funny how it reminds me of some Brexit rhetoric where people were "tired of listening to experts on matters of economy".

There's a great documentary about this by Adam Curtis called [HyperNormalisation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fny99f8amM), discussing how truth is seriously under fire right now.

World, meet Trump supporter.

nope.

Yes, admit it. Don't lie to yourself.

I'll never get these prices, I know at least %50 goes to money laundring, but still, I just can't. That being said, I'm all for spending millions to "preserve antiquity", but not for the privilege of owning a sketch, a quite lame one at that.

Kind of cool to own a piece of history though.

Why is it cool?

Art pieces, aside from their aesthetic and historical value, are essentially very high denomination bank notes. Particularly in this age of high inequality, low interest rates and asset price inflation. There are vast warehouses full of art sitting in customs free zones around the world, technically outside of any tax jurisdiction.

Well, that makes the most sense.

Tempting to think that - I did too - but consider: a true Leonardo would certainly look too perfect as well. By that rule, we would probably never accept another authentic drawing again?

What a rush. Leonardo's drawings are always brilliantly vivid and lifelike to me. I find his paintings much less interesting. It's also nice to know that his drawings sometimes look better in photographs, because they've been enhanced – the frequent state of affairs is fading.

What does "the frequent state of affairs is fading" mean - I tried to get your meaning including substituting different words in case you wrote while distracted (frquent/usual etc) and I just can't get what you meant.

You mean usually (for most works) they fade, but not when talking about drawings?

I think he means that the actual drawings are mostly fading, but photos can be enhanced so they look better.

Yes, you're right. Crappy phrasing.

I think he meant "frequently the drawings are faded".

Not with this kind of ink, that is very interesting in fact.

They can look at a drawing and tell whether the artist is left or right-handed? Seriously?

On mobile, you have to click the "show full article" to, well, show the full article. It really irks me that not only this is unnecessary, but possibly devious, a dark design pattern:

You want to see what's inside, but you haven't decided if you care, however by clicking it you're tricked into thinking you do (after all, you are the one clicked on it, now you're invested, it's not like it was the carefully crafted headline /s).

Do I exaggerate?

Well, perhaps a little. Most of those "show rest of the article" buttons are there to hide "not yet fully loaded state" of the page, some for checking subscription/login etc.

Dark patterns lead people to decisions that are not in their best interest, here the decision is reading the article. Seems a stretch.

A less conspiratorial explanation is that adding the click lets them know who reads the article and who doesn't.

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