Fake Botticelli Turns Out to Be Real Botticelli, Confounding Experts

A person walks next to the "Madonna of the Pomegranate" painted in 1487 by Italian painter Sandro Botticelli at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, on October 17, 2016.

Photographer: ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP

London (AP) -- Art experts in Britain have discovered that a painting long thought to be a fake Sandro Botticelli in fact came from the master's own Florence workshop.

After stripping back a century of yellowing varnish and surface dirt, conservators confirmed Thursday that "Madonna Of The Pomegranate" — a smaller version of the famous 1487 painting in Florence's Uffizi Gallery — was "stylistically too similar to be an imitation."