Yours for £18m, Da Vinci that museums can’t afford

A LONG-LOST Leonardo Da Vinci drawing could be sold to a private collector after museums failed to match the £18million asking price.

The drawing, which was rediscovered in Paris two years ago, will be put on general sale because French galleries have missed a deadline to raise the money to buy it.

Under French laws to protect national heritage, museums must be allowed up to 30 months to buy the art themselves, generally at the market value.

The sketch is believed to date from between 1482 and 1485 and was discovered in a portfolio of unsigned sketches a retired French doctor took into a Paris auction house after inheriting them from his father.

It depicts the martyred St Sebastian tied to the trunk of a tree. On the back of the 7in by 5½in sheet there are two smaller scientific drawings accompanied by notes. Parisian auction house Tajan, which is handling the sale, valued it at around £18million. But after the last year’s sale of Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi painting for a record £350million, the value of his work is being reassessed. The auction house’s chairman, Rodica Seward, said he hopes to get a price between £26million and £53million.

The house was denied an export licence by the French government, which gave the drawing ‘national treasure’ status. However, a 30-month deadline will elapse next June, at which point the drawing can be sold on the open market.

Tajan is now proceeding with the sale after being given assurances the drawing will be allowed to leave the country if a museum is not successful in the bidding process. The sale will take place on June 19 next year.