Leonardo da Vinci's Bear Head Drawing Sells for Record £8.86M at Christie's

A rare Leonardo da Vinci study drawing, 'Testa d'orso' (Bear Head), sold at Christie's London for £8.86 million ($12.2 million, €10.3 million), setting a new auction record for the artist's drawings. The 7×7 cm silverpoint work, executed by a young Leonardo between 1480 and 1490, was estimated at £8–12 million and started at £5.5 million. The winning bidder, a woman present in the saleroom, also unsuccessfully bid on a first edition of Isaac Newton's 'Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica'. The drawing is one of only eight Leonardo studies believed to remain in private hands. It likely originated from a sketchbook that also included studies of two cats and a dog (British Museum, London), a dog's paws (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh), and a walking bear (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). The drawing was previously owned by artist Sir Thomas Lawrence, then by his agent Samuel Woodburn, who sold it at Christie's in 1860. It later belonged to Captain Norman Robert Colville, who also owned Raphael's 'Head of a Muse'. The previous record for a Leonardo drawing was £8.14 million for 'Horse and Rider' at Christie's in 2001.