NEW YORK,
NY (REUTERS).-A
portrait once believed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci sold for
more than $1.5 million in New York last Thursday, around triple the
top price estimated ahead of the auction.Auction house Sotheby’s said another version of the
portrait, “La Belle Ferronniere,” is in the Louvre in Paris and it is that
painting that is now generally agreed to have been by da Vinci himself or
one of his pupils, while the painting sold in New York was a later
copy.