An Italian researcher in Germany has come up with a series of exciting new attributions of Renaissance sketches previously classified as anonymous .
They include a delightful Head of A Child, which Dresden Museum research scholar Lorenza Melli says is by Sandro Botticelli .
The 26 new attributions also include a series of sketches for a Madonna, which Melli has attributed to Andrea Verrocchio, and several life studies she believes are by Filippino Lippi and Luca Signorelli .
Presenting their first appearance in public here, Melli said "I carefully reviewed all these works which had not been properly studied because of the difficulties researchers had in travelling to Dresden before the fall of the Berlin Wall" .
The exhibit at Florence's Dutch University Institute for Art History also features eight drawings from the city's famous Uffizi Gallery which, according to Melli, "had never been studied before" .
"Comparing them with those from Dresden should help understand my attributions," Melli said .
The sketches and preparatory drawings, 47 in all, include works by Benozzo Gozzoli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Pinturicchio .
They have been kept - but never shown - at Dresden's Kupferstich-Kabinett der Staatliche Kunstsammlungen state museum, which boasts one of the richest collections of works on paper in the world. The core of the collection was built up by the Princes of Saxony between the 18th and 19th centuries .
The Florence show puts the drawings in chronological and geographical, ranging from the Po Valley to Tuscany and Umbria-Lazio, to present an imaginary journey through 15th century Italy. The wide variety of materials used in drawing in the 15th century, including specially prepared paper, is also spotlighted. Botticelli, Verrocchio e oltre. Disegni italiani del Quattrocento dalle collezioni reali di Dresda (Botticelli, Verrocchio and Beyond. Italian Drawings of the 15th Century from the Royal Collections of Dresden) runs in the Dutch Institute until November 5 .
There will be a conference on October 28 at which some of the world's leading experts on Renaissance drawings will discuss Melli's attributions .
