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A Bear Walking

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Exhibitions:

A Bear Walking

Leonardo da Vinci  (Italian, Vinci 1452–1519 Amboise)

Date:
ca. 1490
Culture:
Italian, Florence
Medium:
metalpoint on light buff prepared paper
Dimensions:
4 1/16 x 5 1/4 in. (10.3 x 13.3 cm)
Classification:
(not assigned)
Credit Line:
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number:
1975.1.369

This artwork is not on display

  • Description

    Leonardo da Vinci's abundant drawings and notebooks record his keen and tireless observation of all aspects of the natural world. This accurately rendered depiction of a bear walking was presumably drawn from life. (In one of his notebooks the artist wrote of the presence of bears in the woods outside Milan.) It relates thematically to a small group of drawings of a bear's head and paws that Leonardo probably produced for an anatomical treatise. The faint outlines of a seated woman are visible beneath the drawing of the bear, indicating that Leonardo reused the sheet.

  • Provenance

    Thomas Lawrence, London; Samuel Woodburn, London; Lawrence-Woodburn sale 1860, June 8, lot 1038; private collection, England; [P.& D. Colnaghi & Co., London]; Ludwig Rosenthal, Bern, Switzerland; (later L.V. Randall, Montreal); [Schaeffer Galleries, New York]; acquired by Robert Lehman from Schaeffer Galleries in February 1945

  • See also
    Who
    What
    Where
    When
    In the Museum
    Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
    MetPublications
150000235

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