It does need more research, it seems – apparently by the French police.

“Orazio’s chosen a very quiet moment of contemplation, and this very emphatic juxtaposition of the stone in his left hand and the sword in his right really underlines the virtuous image … it comes from a private collection in the UK … this picture was discovered in 2012 – it was quite sensational – and it’s still a picture that needs quite a lot of research…” It’s such a small painting, yet it has such incredible wall power, and I think that bright blue really intensifies the drama of the scene,” she said in a National Gallery podcast in 2013. “It’s astonishing when you look at it in the flesh. Curator Letizia Treves – who has also organised the NG’s Beyond Caravaggio exhibition that opens on 12 October – was highly enthusiastic at the time. Gentileschi’s painting was “discovered” in 2012 and sold to a private collector, who was persuaded to loan it to the National Gallery. But if the National Gallery has been a victim of what may be one of the most effective forgery rings of all time, the joke is on experts and critics – me included – who did not ask the right questions. Can the National Gallery have fallen for a fake? Did it unwittingly ask us to revere a forgery – and was I duped? When London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery deliberately hung a fake among its old masters as a publicity stunt, I was not amused. The National Gallery in London, now implicated in a new potential forgery case.

Letizia treves national gallery