Leonardo da Vinci | Designs for a Nativity or Adoration of the Christ Child; Perspectival Projection (recto); Slight Doodles (verso)

Additional Images (10)

Designs for a Nativity or Adoration of the Christ Child; Perspectival Projection (recto); Slight Doodles (verso)

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

Date: 1480–85

Medium: Silverpoint, partly reworked with pen and dark brown ink on pink prepared paper; lines ruled with metalpoint (recto); pen and brown ink (verso)

Dimensions: 7-5/8 x 6-3/8 in. (19.3 x 16.2 cm)

Classification: Drawings

Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1917

Accession Number: 17.142.1

Not on view

Label Object Information Related Objects Online Resources Video Audio

In these dazzling sketches of the Virgin kneeling in humility before the Christ Child, who lies on the ground, Leonardo investigated a theme that he would also use in the Virgin of the Rocks (Musée du Louvre, Paris; and National Gallery, London), in which the Virgin kneels facing the spectator, her right hand raised in blessing over the seated Infant Jesus. The composition in the center is closest to the Virgin of the Rocks. These sketches, however, seem more closely related to an undocumented painting from around 1483-85 by Leonardo that must have been brought at least to the stage of a complete cartoon (full-scale drawing); several contemporary painted copies of this composition survive. Leonardo explored a number of solutions to the same theme on the sheet with dazzling fluency. He used the traditional fifteenth-century medium of metalpoint but reinforced the shadows with pen and ink for a deeper tonal contrast. The geometric constructions at the lower right represent his attempts to work out the perspective within the composition, with respect to the spectator's vantage point.

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Inscription: [in pen and brown ink at upper border of old mount]: de la main de Leonardo da Vinci

Marking: Metropolitan Museum of Art stamp removed from center of lower margin of recto in February 1969. When the original negative was made in 1917 (37134 tf B) the stamp had not yet been applied. In 1963 when a new negative was made (177999 8 x 10) the stamp was visible. No recent photograph recording that the drawing no longer has the stamp has been taken.
Provenance

Jacques Guillaume Legrand (French, Paris, 1743–1807); Joseph Allen Smith (London and Charleston, South Carolina); Possibly Thomas Sully (American, Horncastle, Lincolnshire 1783–1872 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania); Possibly Francis T. S. Darley ; Thomas Nash (New York, 1861–1926)(bequeathed by Darley)
Exhibition History

Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Diamond Jubilee Exhibition, Masterpieces of Drawing (Philadelphia)," November 4, 1950–February 11, 1951.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "100 European Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art," 1964.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings from New York Collections I: The Italian Renaissance," November 8, 1965–January 9, 1966.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries," November 14, 1970–February 14, 1971.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Leonardo da Vinci and His Followers in the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art," March 5, 1981–June 7, 1981.

Palazzo Grassi, Venice. "Leonardo & Venezia," April 4, 1992–July 13, 1992.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," October 6, 1997–January 4, 1998.

Gibbes Museum of Art. "In Pursuit of Refinement: Charlestonians Abroad, 1740-1860 (Charleston)," April 8, 1999–July 3, 1999.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," September 11, 2000–December 4, 2000.

Palazzo Reale, Milan. "Il Genio e le Passioni, Leonardo e il Cenacolo: innovazioni, precedenti, riflessi di un capolavoro," March 15, 2001–June 17, 2001.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Leonardo da Vinci: Master Draftsman," January 22, 2003–March 30, 2003.

Musée du Louvre, Paris. "Leonard de Vinci. Dessins et manuscrits," May 5, 2003–July 14, 2013.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Raphael at the Metropolitan: The Colonna Altarpiece," June 20, 2006–September 3, 2006.

National Gallery, London. "Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan," November 9, 2011–February 5, 2012.
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