The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John Baptist

Leonardo Vinci, da (after)

Summary

A reproduction produced by the Vasari Society of a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. The drawing shows two women - identified in the title as the Virgin Mary and Saint Anne - and two young boys. The two women are seated and the one on the left is holding one of the boys - the Christ child - towards the right. She looks down at him with a smile. The woman behind looks at the woman on the left and raises her left hand, pointing upwards. The Christ child looks down at the other boy who is standing by the right edge of the composition and raises his right hand in the gesture of a blessing. In the lower left of the composition there is some confusion in where the legs of the women are drawn and it looks like the artist has tried different arrangements in the same drawing. The text for nos. 1-5 in this set of prints are grouped together in the accompanying booklet produced by the Vasari Society. The text is as follows: "Nos. 1-5 LEONARDO DA VINCI (b. 1452; d. 1519) THE VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH ST. ANNE AND ST. JOHN BAPTIST Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy of Arts. Black chalk. 1.39 x 1.01 m (4 ft. 6 3/4 in. x 3 ft. 3 3/4 in.). The first of these prints reproduces in small the whole composition of Leonardo's famous cartoon at the Royal Academy; in the other four the heads are given severally, nearly on the scale of the original. This incomparable work is too well known to call for comment. Much in its earlier history remains uncertain. It may well be the same which Lomazzo describes as having been taken by the master to France, and as having afterwards belonged to Aurelio Luini, the son of Bernardino. At any rate it was long in possession of the Areonati family; next (after 1720) in that of the Marchese Casnedi at Milan; next in that of the Sagredo family at Venice, where it was bought by the English Consul, Robert Udny, and by him sent to London for sale about 1765. At what exact date it became the property of the Royal Academy is not recorded; but certainly some years before 1791. It is not the same cartoon which all Florence flocked to see at the convent of S. Annunziata in 1501. That, as we know from contemporary accounts, corresponded in design with the picture of the Virgin with the Child, ST. Anne, and the Lamb at the Louvre; two copies of it are extant, but the original is lost. The Academy cartoon represents an earlier, perhaps more beautiful, conception of a kindred motive, and belongs without doubt to the master's first Milanese period (1482-1500), probably to its latter part. It would seem to have been in his possession at Florence at the same time as he was designing the modified version for the monks of S. Annunziata; to have been seen there by Michelangelo; and to have given him the suggestion for a sketch of a similar motive at Oxford. S. C."