Salome in a veil of doubt

A £1 million painting in the National Gallery is not by the Italian master Caravaggio, the gallery's director, Mr Michael Levey, claimed last night. The hitherto undoubted masterpiece, "Salome with the head of John the Baptist" has hung in the gallery since 1970, when it was bought for less than £100,000 by the gallery's trustees. It had been owned by Major A. E. Allnatt, who made a fortune in property dealings and collected old masters. On his death, his will instructed his executors to offer to the National Gallery some of his paintings at the price he paid for them - sometimes many years before. He gave the magnificent " Adoration of the Magi " - the Rubens painting defaced earlier this year with the scrawled letters IRA - to King's College, Cambridge.