Leonardo’s curiosity and insatiable hunger for knowledge never left him. He was constantly observing, experimenting, and inventing, and drawing was, for him, a tool for recording his investigation of nature.

Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452–1519) stands as a supreme icon in Western consciousness—the very embodiment of the universal Renaissance genius. With much of his work lost or unfinished, the key to his legacy can be found in the enormous body of his extant drawings and manuscript notes. This publication offers a unified and fascinating portrait of Leonardo as a draftsman, integrating his diverse roles as an artist, scientist, inventor, theorist, and teacher. Essays written by the world's leading Leonardo scholars investigate the significant implications of Leonardo's left-handedness both for the connoisseurship of his drawings and for a reconstruction of his artistic personality; the relationship between word and image in Leonardo's drawings and manuscripts; problems of attribution and authenticity in the critical evaluation of Leonardo's graphic oeuvre; Leonardo's early drapery studies; the role of the artist's father; and the special role of drawn frames or boundaries in Leonardo's design process. Detailed descriptions of 138 individual works survey the wide variety of drawing types that Leonardo used, and also include a small group of works by artists critical to his artistic development in Florence and to his multifaceted activity in Milan. A chronological framework is also provided to shed light on his extraordinary life and career.

These fifty sheets of drawings of the human body by Leonardo, made between about 1485 and 1510–15, are based on the artist's own anatomical dissections and show his evolving understanding of physiology. The drawings demonstrate, as well, Leonardo's progress from technical mastery of his subject to consummate draftsmanship. As Sir Robin Mackworth-Young, librarian of Windsor Castle, says of Leonardo in his Preface: "In the primitive conditions of the late fifteenth century, and with no medical training, this astonishing man acquired a knowledge of human anatomy far in advance of the medical profession of his day. And the studies in which he recorded his findings bear comparison as works of art with his exquisite portrayals of the exterior of the human form and of horses, or with his dramatic representations of mountainous landscapes." The catalogue documents the second exhibition of Leonardo's drawings from Windsor; Leonardo da Vinci: Nature Studies was shown at the Museum in 1981. The present catalogue contains a chronological table, glossary, table of concordance, and bibliographical note. Catalogue entries are by Kenneth Keele and Jane Roberts.

On February 7, 1963, Leonardo da Vinci’s _Mona Lisa_ made her public debut at The Met.

Curators Dita Amory and Alison Manges Nogueira discuss five portrait drawings from the exhibition Leonardo to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Robert Lehman Collection.

The first comprehensive exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci's (1453-1519) drawings ever presented in America, Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman, a landmark international loan exhibition, will bring together nearly 120 works by one of the most renowned masters of all time—the very embodiment of the Renaissance ideal of the universal genius.

The first comprehensive exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings ever presented in America, Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman, a landmark international loan exhibition, will bring together nearly 120 works by one of the most renowned masters of all time. Even in an era celebrated for its limitless scientific discovery, technological invention, and sublime artistic achievement, Leonardo stands as an icon in Western consciousness — the very embodiment of the universal Renaissance genius.