The Madonna and Child with the Infant St. John the Baptist is a lost composition by Leonardo da Vinci.[1] The composition is known through a handful of paintings attributed to artists in Leonardo's circle. An original underdrawing by Leonardo may be preserved in a version in a private collection in Moscow, Russia.[2]
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, more commonly Leonardo da Vinci or simply Leonardo, was an Italian polymath of the Renaissance whose areas of interest included invention, drawing, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and he is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter, and tank, he epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal.
Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits, 17 million within the urban area and 20 million within the metropolitan area. Moscow is one of Russia's federal cities.
The painting depicts the Virgin Mary with arms outstretched and the infant Christ embracing a lamb. The infant John the Baptist is depicted holding a goldfinch, a symbol of the passion.[3] The three figures are shown before a vegetated and rocky landscape and with architectural structures in the distance.
In Christianity, the Passion is the short final period in the life of Jesus beginning with his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and ending with his crucifixion and his death on Good Friday.
Compositional sketches for the Virgin adoring the child Christ, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Virgin of the Rocks is the name of two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, of the same subject, and of a composition which is identical except for several significant details. The version generally considered the prime version, that is the earlier of the two, hangs in The Louvre in Paris and the other in the National Gallery, London. The paintings are both nearly 2 metres high and are painted in oils. Both were originally painted on wooden panel, but the Louvre version has been transferred to canvas.
The Louvre, or the Louvre Museum, is the world's largest art museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement. Approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. In 2018, the Louvre was the world's most visited art museum, receiving 10.2 million visitors.
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The two locations received over two million visitors in 2016.
The office of Royal Librarian, in the Royal Collection Department of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, is responsible for the care and maintenance of the books and manuscripts in the Royal Library, a collection spread across all the palaces, occupied and unoccupied. In addition to his or her role overseeing the librarians in the Royal Library, the Librarian is also Deputy Keeper of the Royal Archives and is responsible for the management of the Royal Archives and its collections,
Attribution
In 1930, Tancred Borenius attributed the Ashmolean version to Leonardo.[7] Though this has gone undisputed, it has not been accepted by most scholars of Leonardo.
Recent research by a consortium of Leonardo experts argues that the Moscow version is likely the origin of the composition and may contain an underdrawing by Leonardo's hand. The consortium included Alexander Kossolapov, Martin Kemp, and Thereza Wells. Kemp said of the painting:
Martin Kemp is emeritus professor of the history of art at University of Oxford. He is considered one of the world's leading experts on the art of Leonardo da Vinci and visualisation in art and science.
This is the most remarkable of the narrative madonnas, with the child reacting to the goldfinch which is held up by Saint John with him clinging onto the lamb, the sacrificial animal ... As far as attributions go it is very difficult because you've got studio production, you've got various artists of various status, you've also got later of followers ... But the Leonardo involvement in the inventione is perfectly clear.[8]
Kossolapov argued that the Moscow painting is the work by Leonardo and his workshop.[2] Kemp and Wells were more reserved and concluded there were no clear signs of Leonardo's hand in the underdrawing. They further concluded that there probably never was an 'original' painting and the Moscow and Florence versions would have been regarded as 'Leonardo's', that is, works produced in Leonardo's brand.[3]
1 2 Wells, Thereza. "Report on the Virgin and Child with the Infant St. John the Baptist, Moscow, private collection." July 2016. Website. http://leonardomadonna.com/london-report
↑ Delieuvin, V (2012). Saint Anne: Leonardo da Vinci's Ultimate Masterpiece. Paris. p.256.
Bartolomeo Montagna was an Italian Renaissance painter who mainly worked in Vicenza. He also produced works in Venice, Verona, and Padua. He is most famous for his many Madonnas and his works are known for their soft figures and depiction of eccentric marble architecture. He is considered to be heavily influenced by Giovanni Bellini, in whose workshop he might have worked around 1470. Benedetto Montagna, a productive engraver, was his son and pupil and active until about 1540. He was mentioned in Vasari's Lives as a student of Andrea Mantegna but this is widely contested by art historians.
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne is an oil painting by Leonardo da Vinci depicting St Anne, her daughter the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. Christ is shown grappling with a sacrificial lamb symbolizing his Passion as the Virgin tries to restrain him. The painting was commissioned as the high altarpiece for the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence and its theme had long preoccupied Leonardo.
The Madonna Litta is a late 15th-century painting, traditionally attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. It depicts the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the Christ child, a devotional subject known as the Madonna lactans. The figures are set in a dark interior with two arched openings, as in Leonardo's earlier Madonna of the Carnation, and a mountainous landscape in aerial perspective can be seen beyond. In his left hand Christ holds a goldfinch, which is symbolic of his future Passion.
The Adoration of the Magi is an early painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo was given the commission by the Augustinian monks of San Donato a Scopeto in Florence, but he departed for Milan the following year, leaving the painting unfinished. It has been in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence since 1670.
The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist, sometimes called The Burlington House Cartoon, is a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. The drawing is in charcoal and black and white chalk, on eight sheets of paper glued together. Because of its large size and format the drawing is presumed to be a cartoon for a painting. No painting by Leonardo exists that is based directly on this cartoon.
The Madonna of the Yarnwinder is a subject depicted by Leonardo da Vinci in at least one, and perhaps two paintings begun in 1499 or later. Leonardo was recorded as being at work on one such picture in Florence in 1501 for Florimond Robertet, a secretary to King Louis XII of France. This may have been delivered to the French court in 1507, though scholars are divided on this point. The subject is known today from several versions of which two, called the Buccleuch Madonna and the Lansdowne Madonna, are thought to be partly by Leonardo's hand. The underdrawings of both paintings show similar experimental changes made to the composition, suggesting that both evolved concurrently in Leonardo's workshop.
La Belle Jardinière, also known as Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist, is a painting started the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael and finished by Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio. It is believed to have been commissioned by the Sienese patrician Fabrizio Sergardi in approximately 1507-1508. It is currently displayed in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.
The Aldobrandini Madonna is a painting from about 1509–1510 oil by the Italian renaissance artist Raphael. The picture is of the Virgin Mother, Christ child and infant John the Baptist, one of many paintings by Raphael with this trio. It is from early in his third, or Roman period, where distinctive changes are seen from his Umbrian or Florentine period in style, use of colour, and introduction of more natural subjects and settings.
The Ansidei Madonna is a 1505–1507 painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael, painted during his Florentine period. It shows the Blessed Virgin Mary sitting on a wooden throne, with the child Christ on her lap. On her right John the Baptist stands, on her left Saint Nicholas is reading.
Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance from Lombardy, who worked in the studio of Leonardo da Vinci. Boltraffio and Bernardino Luini are the strongest artistic personalities to emerge from Leonardo's studio. According to Giorgio Vasari, he was of an aristocratic family and was born in Milan.
The Holy Infants Embracing is a lost painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. It represents the infant Christ embracing his cousin John the Baptist. The subject matter relates to the two paintings of the Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo and numerous other Renaissance works by Raphael and others of the meeting of the two children on the road to Egypt while escaping the Massacre of the Innocents.
Giampietrino, probably Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli, was a north Italian painter of the Lombard school and Leonardo's circle, succinctly characterized by Sidney J. Freedberg as an "exploiter of Leonardo's repertory."
The year 1509 in art involved some significant events and new works.
The Taddei Tondo or The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John is a marble relief tondo by Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti. Part of the permanent collection of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, it is the only marble sculpture by Michelangelo in Great Britain. A "perfect demonstration" of his carving technique, the work delivers a "powerful emotional and narrative punch".
The Head of a Woman—also known as La Scapigliata— is a painting in oil on wood by the Italian Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci, dating from around c. 1508 and housed in the Galleria Nazionale di Parma, Italy.
The Leonardeschi is the large group of artists who worked in the studio of or under the influence of Leonardo da Vinci. In 1472 da Vinci joined the Guild of St Luke and at the end of 1477 he left the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio as an independent artist. In 1482 Leonardo came to Milan where he stayed with Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis, Evangelista de Predis and their four brothers, who all were artists of different kinds. Both Predis brothers are known for having collaborated with Leonardo da Vinci in the painting of the Virgin of the Rocks for the altarpiece in the chapel of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception at the Church of San Francesco Grande, Milan. In 1490 Leonardo earned recognition and a breakthrough at the court of Ludovico Sforza and because of the scale of works commissioned he was permitted to have assistants and pupils in his own studio.
The Madonna and Child with the Infant John the Baptist is a 1518 oil on panel painting by Antonio da Correggio. Stylistically it is closest to the frescoes Correggio produced for the Camera di San Paolo and the fact that it was a model for Michelangelo Anselmi suggests that Correggio painted it in Parma. It is the work in which Leonardo da Vinci's influence on Correggio is most obvious - it forms a free variation on Leonardo's The Virgin of the Rocks.
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