Not all discoveries are welcome. . .

Galleries around the world are delighted when Sir Timothy Clifford offers to rummage through their archives, following his discovery of a Michelangelo sketch worth £8m in the back rooms of a New York museum last year.

But now they might be more cautious. The flamboyant director of the National Galleries of Scotland has announced that two sketches held at the Uffizi gallery in Florence, attributed to Michelangelo and believed to be worth millions of pounds are in fact the work of the lesser Italian artist, Parmigianino.

In an article published in Apollo. . . Clifford reveals that the pen-and-ink studies of eagles on two sides of a sheet of paper are “characteristic mature work by Parmigianino”.

Clifford, who made the find while taking a sabbatical last year, said: “If it was a Michelangelo, it would be worth millions. As a drawing by a follower in his school, it would be worth several thousand pounds, but as a Parmigianino, it is a drawing that is worth about £50,000.”

Posted by David on April 20, 2003 2:41 PM