500 yr image of da Vinci found

New York: A music professor in the US has identified what he believes to be a rare image of Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci in a 500-year-old engraving. The engraving carved by Italian artist Marcantonio Raimondi in 1505 shows da Vinci playing a lira da braccio - a European bowed string instrument of the Renaissance.

If verified, the engraving could be one of only three known depictions of the artist created while he was alive. The engraving has belonged to the Cleveland Museum of Art since the 1930s. Ross Duffin, a music professor at Case Western Reserve University in US, identified the man in the engraving as da Vinci in an article published in Cleveland Art magazine. He said that while Orpheus is usually depicted as a clean-shaven youth, the musician in the drawing is in his "late middle age, with a beard and centrally parted hair with long curls". Duffin compares the engraving with a portrait of da Vinci drawn by Francesco Melzi, "who joined the 54-year-old Leonardo's household as an assistant in 1506 and eventually became his principal heir."