Madonna of the Yarnwinder (The Lansdowne Madonna)

Set against a vast and distant landscape, a knowing mother looks off as her restless child slips from her lap to engage with a niddy-noddy used to gather spun wool into a skein. In the hands of her young son whose index finger rests at the crossing of the two wooden bars, the instrument portends the young boy’s death on the cross. A letter to Isabella d'Este in 1501 states that Leonardo da Vinci was working on "a Madonna seated as if she were about to spin yarn. The Child has placed his foot on the basket of yarns and has grasped the yarnwinder and gazes attentively at the four spokes that are in the form of a cross." It is unclear whether that work was ever completed or whether it was even a painting, but the popularity of its subject is revealed by many versions of the composition. This painting, one of the finest of the group, takes its name from the Marchioness of Landsdowne, in whose collection it was first recorded in the nineteenth century.