AI analysis finds £71,000 painting dismissed as copy is a Caravaggio

The Badminton House version of The Lute Player was sold by Sotheby’s in 2001 as ‘circle of Caravaggio’. Photograph:

He is one of the most revered artists in western art, yet just a few dozen works by Caravaggio have survived. Now the 17th-century master’s hand has been confirmed in a painting that Sotheby’s and the Metropolitan Museum in New York had dismissed as a mere copy.

Scientific analysis of The Lute Player, which was bought for Badminton House in Gloucestershire in the 18th century, has concluded that it is by Caravaggio, with a probability of 85.7%.