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A Bear Walking

ca. 1482–85
Not on view
Leonardo da Vinci's abundant drawings and notebooks record his keen and tireless observation of all aspects of the natural world. He probably drew this study from life and his anatomical understanding of the animal may have been aided by his dissections of bears. The sheet relates to a group of bear studies that Leonardo probably produced for his planned anatomical treatise, about which he wrote: “I will discourse of the hands of each animal to show in what way they vary, as in the bear which has the ligatures of the toes joined above the instep.” The faint outlines of a seated woman are visible beneath the drawing of the bear, indicating that Leonardo reused the sheet.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: A Bear Walking
  • Artist: Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, Vinci 1452–1519 Amboise)
  • Date: ca. 1482–85
  • Medium: silverpoint on light buff prepared paper
  • Dimensions: 4 1/16 x 5 1/4 in. (10.3 x 13.3 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
  • Object Number: 1975.1.369
  • Curatorial Department: The Robert Lehman Collection

More Artwork

More Artwork
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Head of a Woman (La Scapigliata), Leonardo da Vinci Italian, Oil, earth, and white lead pigments on poplar
Returned to lender
Head of a Woman (La Scapigliata)
Leonardo da Vinci
1500–1505
Compositional Sketches for the Virgin Adoring the Christ Child, with and without the Infant St. John the Baptist; Diagram of a Perspectival Projection (recto); Slight Doodles (verso), Leonardo da Vinci Italian, Silverpoint, partly reworked by the artist with pen and dark brown ink on pink prepared paper; lines ruled with metalpoint (recto); pen and brown ink (verso)
Compositional Sketches for the Virgin Adoring the Christ Child, with and without the Infant St. John the Baptist; Diagram of a Perspectival Projection (recto); Slight Doodles (verso)
Leonardo da Vinci
1480–85
Traitté de la Peinture, Leonardo da Vinci Italian, Printed book
Traitté de la Peinture
Multiple artists/makers
1651
The Head of the Virgin in Three-Quarter View Facing Right, Leonardo da Vinci Italian, Black chalk, charcoal, and red chalk, with some traces of white chalk (?); some remains of framing lines in pen and brown ink at upper right (not by Leonardo)
The Head of the Virgin in Three-Quarter View Facing Right
Leonardo da Vinci
1510–13
The Head of a Grotesque Man in Profile Facing Right, Leonardo da Vinci Italian, Pen and brown ink, on off-white paper (now darkened)
The Head of a Grotesque Man in Profile Facing Right
Leonardo da Vinci
after 1500

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