If the drawing is originally a Leonardo illustration for the present-day Warsaw copy of the Sforziad, its history is the same as that of the book until the drawing was cut out from the volume.[6] The book is known to have been rebound at the turn of the 18 and 19th century.[7][8]
The modern provenance of the drawing is known only from 1955 and is documented only from 1998.[9] According to a lawsuit brought by Jeanne Marchig against Christie's after the drawing's re-attribution to Leonardo, the drawing belonged to her husband Giannino Marchig, an art restorer, when they married in 1955. Jeanne Marchig became the owner of the drawing in 1983, following Mr Marchig's death.[10]
The work was included in a sale at Christie's in New York on January 1, 1998, catalogued as Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress, and described as "German School, early 19th Century".[9] The seller was Jeanne Marchig.[2] It was sold to a New York art dealer for $21,850[2] (including buyer's premium).[9] who sold it on for a similar amount in 2007.[4]
Lumière Technology in Paris performed a multi-spectral digital scan of the work,[11] and in 2009 the spectral images were analysed by Peter Paul Biro, a forensic art examiner who discovered a fingerprint which he said was "highly comparable" to a fingerprint on Leonardo's unfinished St. Jerome in the Wilderness.[4][12]
The drawing was shown in an exhibition called And there was Light in Eriksberg, Gothenburg in Sweden,[13] and was estimated by various newspaper reports to be worth more than $160 million.[14][15][16][17][18][19]
Reflecting the subject of an Italian woman of high nobility, Kemp named the portrait La Bella Principessa, although Sforza ladies were not princesses.[1]