PARIS, October 21. /TASS/. The administrative court of Paris ruled for the owner of a rare drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, who could not offer it at auctions for several years due to the prohibition of the France’s Ministry of Culture, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency said.

"This is a major victory for my client," Counsel Olivier Baratelli said. "This drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, which was not showed for a long time because of flimsy claims, can be eventually presented to the wide audience and posted for sale," the counsel noted. His client is to transfer the painting to the Christie's auction house shortly.

The sketch titled "Martyrdom of St. Sebastian" and made by feather and brown ink belongs to a French doctor. Following the retirement, he asked an expert from the Tajan auction house in Paris to evaluate the collection inherited from his father. The expert’s attention was called by a work labeled as "Michelangelo." Having examined it together with his colleague, he arrived at a conclusion that the painting was very close by style to da Vinci’s works, which was confirmed later by Carmen Bambach from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. In her opinion, the sketch was made in approximately 1478-1483.