Not long after Eric Hebborn was murdered, an off-the-record conversation with the famed artist-turned-forger was published. On tape, Hebborn made explosive claims about his time as a student at the Royal Academy of Art in the 1950s, where he had been awarded a prestigious prize. Though a gifted draughtsman, he was a surprising choice, because the art of the day was all about high concepts, not realistic depictions. Drawing was an unfashionable business, so how had a mere draughtsman won the prize?
Hebborn explained that, one day, a drunken porter at the Royal Academy was looking for a quiet spot to sleep in the basement and had fashioned a screen made of some of the pictures stored down there. One of those was the only surviving large drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, known as the Burlington House Cartoon, after the Royal Academy’s headquarters. Unfortunately, the porter stacked the Da Vinci against a leaking radiator. By the next morning, the picture had been thoroughly steamed. Only the faintest outline of the sketch remained.
In a panic, the porter summoned the president of the Royal Academy, who summoned the keeper of pictures, who summoned the chief restorer of the National Gallery, who announced that the picture couldn’t be restored, it could only be redrawn. At which point, they sent for star student Eric Hebborn, who wielded his chalk and charcoal in a flawless recreation of the lost original.