Fake da Vinci portrait fetches $1.5m at auction

Original painting by Leonardo called 'La Belle Ferronniere' housed in Louvre

NEW YORK: A portrait once believed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci sold for more than $1.5 million in New York on Thursday, around treble 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.