Three sketches were discovered earlier this year on the back of a painting by Leonardo da Vinci and they may have been drawn by the Italian master himself, the Louvre Museum said in a statement Thursday.

 

The astonishing discovery was made by chance; Louvre staff removed “The Virgin and the Child with Saint Anne” from its place on the wall as part of an ongoing programme of study and restoration of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, reports Reuters.

A curator thus noticed sketches on the back of the painting, previously unknown, to the amazement of all present. The drawings are of a horse’s head and half a skull, the Louvre said in a statement.

 

“The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne” was painted in the early 1500s, oil on wood, and the Louvre is not aware of anyone having ever noticed the drawings before – hence researchers’ excitement at the paradoxically new half a millennium old sketches.

Other staff members present when the painting was unhooked and the curator noticed the figures on its back were so taken aback that they initially said, in disbelief, that those must be stains on the wood.

 

Detailed tests of the painting’s back however confirmed those were indeed drawings and there were actually three of them. Photographs taken with an infrared camera revealed a third sketch, of a Child Jesus playing with a lamb.

 

The eminent French museum explained in its statement that the drawings were similar to other works of da Vinci’s; no other sketches on the back of paintings were known for the Renaissance artist. The sketch of the child and lamb may have been for the painting itself, the museum said.

 

Research continues to establish the author of the drawings. They are almost impossible to see with the human eye.