Posted by Susan Benford
The number of famous paintings by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is around 14, according to recent sources. The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, boasts two of 
these da Vinci art paintings, Madonna with a Flower (commonly known as Benois Madonna) of 1478, and Madonna and Child (or Litta Madonna) from the 1490s.
Not surprisingly, these famous paintings attract teeming s of swarms of sharp-elbowed visitors (and even of art museum guides), despite the sweltering heat blanketing Russia. Studying these Leonardo paintings, though, is all about patience, ignoring those furtively snapping flash photos (and reminding me to discuss Large Crowd Etiquette with my teenage sons). The Benois Madonna, one of the few art paintings from the early career of Leonardo, is a genre scene of the Madonna and Child, a topic Leonardo favored in various sketches and drawings in his earliest years as an artist.
Leonardo da Vinci. Madonna with a Flower (Benois Madonna), 1478. Oil on canvas transferred from panel. Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
Attired in fashionable clothing and a hairstyle current at the time, the Benois Madonna (left) gazes at her baby in pure adoration while he plays with a four-petalled flower, a symbol of the Cross. The simplicity and purity of her reverence is palpable, yielding a seemingly spontaneous interaction between the two. Leonardo used oil paints in this work, a relatively new technique for Italian painters of the 1470s.
Over a dozen years later, Leonardo returned to this favored theme in the Madonna Litta, probably painted in Milan; Leonardo moved there in 1482 to work for Duke Lodovico Sforza (perhaps best remembered in art history as the commissioner of The Last Supper). In contrast to his earlier Madonna, Leonardo presents here an idealized version in which she epitomizes ultimate maternal love and devotion for a child. Here is the humanist dream of Ideal Life, with pure love and idyllically peaceful surroundings. The child, brilliantly modeled in chiaroscuro, is all roundness; his direct gaze lures the viewer into the painting with one of those riveting gazes that tracks with you as you move. These two famous paintings are a startling 
Leonardo da Vinci. Madonna and Child (Madonna Litta), 1490s. Tempera on canvas, approximately 16" by 13". Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
reminder that even the genius of Leonardo evolved and changed over time.
There’s nary a peep in the Hermitage description of Madonna Litta that its attribution has been questioned. Some art history scholars contend it was at least partially painted by an assistant, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio (1466/67 - 1516); he worked in Leonardo's studio, and some believe he was responsible for some, if not all, of the landscape seen through the symettrical arched windows.
Talk about lucky – I could have missed the Madonna Litta, which will be on loan to London's National Gallery for its forthcoming Leonardo art exhibition running from 11/2011 to 2/2012. Perhaps this Leonardo art exhibition was inspired by the recent, 18 month long restoration of one of the most famous paintings by Leonardo, Virgin of the Rocks. The radical change in its appearance prompted the art critic, Jonathan Jones, to quip that Virgin of the Rocks is now "freed from an amber prison". Because Madonna Litta will be in London, I consider myself doubly lucky to have seen it at the Hermitage - I would have been bereft to have missed her! Read more about other famous paintings by Leonardo in this art exhibition, Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan.
You can read about other famous paintings by Leonardo-- The Last Supper and The Mona Lisa- in Masterpiece Cards, a set of art history flash cards of renowned art paintings. They span Renaissance paintings through Pop art paintings, providing an art history survey of famous paintings.
Want a sample to see and hold? Request samples of Masterpiece Cards, and we'll oblige. Want to go green? See sample art history flashcards online.
Posted by Susan Benford
With the art history world abuzz with "La Bella Principessa", a drawing newly attributed to Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519), I'm reminded again of the accomplishments of this singular Renaissance genius. Not only did he create famous paintings, but also he is credited with seminal discoveries in engineering, sculpture, theater design, architecture, aeronautics, music and anatomy. In just 67 years!
Born in the town of Vinci, outside Florence, Leonardo was the illegitimate son of a notary, a scarring social stigma which some art historians believe contributed to his lifelong solitude. After training with the famous painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrochio (c. 1435-1488), Leonardo became master of Florence's Guild of St. Luke, an association named in honor of the patron saint of painters. Unlike his contemporaries in Renaissance art, Leonardo was inspired by the primacy of the eye in direct observation, and of the intellect in comprehending what was observed.
Leonardo spent much of his life outside Florence, employed by foreign princes and kings often at war with his native land. Among these were Prince Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, who retained Leonardo from 1508 to 1513 as a painter and builder of catapults, bridges and cannons. It was during this Milan tenure that Leonardo purportedly drew "La Bella Principessa", believed to be the prince's daughter, Bianca Sforza.
One of Leonardo's most famous artworks, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, is an unfinished commission with
Oil on wood, c. 1503 - 1506. 5'6 1/8" x 3'8". Louvre.visible traces of underpainting. Even in its unfinished state, though, this famous painting illustrates three pictorial techniques either created or perfected by Leonardo: chiaroscuro (the use of light and dark to create effects of relief and modelling); sfumato (literally, "vanished in smoke", a technique of defining form and shape by gradations of light and dark); and aerial perspective (a method of indicating distance by tone and color contrast).
Here, he has arranged the figures as a pyramid set in a landscape. While the theme of the Virgin Mary, her mother (Anne), and Jesus was common, it is unusual for Mary to be portrayed in her mother's lap. The background landscape, whose crags are seemingly replicated in Anne's veil, virtually melts in its sfumato haze. The baby lamb is both a symbol of innocence and of Jesus' sacrifice for humanity, memorialized in John the Baptist's reference to Jesus as the "Lamb of God".
There are similarities between the Mona Lisa, dated 1503 to 1505, and The Virgin and Child, painted in the same timeframe: Mona
Lisa's famously enigmatic smile (above) is similar to Saint Anne's. Additionally, the hazy, misty backgrounds are evocative of each other, although in Mona Lisa, the left and right parts are mismatched and have different horizons. As if Leonardo could foretell that Mona Lisa would become the world's most famous painting, he had this - as well as The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne - in his possession when he died in 1519.
Posted by Susan Benford
Art history scholars announce attribution of a little-known drawing to Leonardo da Vinci, the first such authentication of his artwork in over 100 years. This 13" x 9" portrait is on vellum (animal skin) in chalk, pen and ink, and is mounted on oak. Art historians believe it is a portrait of Bianca Sforza, the daughter of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan (1452-1508), and his mistress, Bernardina de Corradis.
Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of History of Art, Oxford University, has coined the title "La Bella Principessa" for this
drawing, which he dates to around 1496. In that year, Bianca Sforza married one of Leonardo's patrons, Galeazzo Sanseverino. Dr. Kemp's belief is corroborated by use of a "multispectral" camera, which shows images of the layers of pigments applied in creating the work.
In the process of examining multispectral images, forensic art expert Peter Paul Biro discovered both a fingerprint and a palm print on the portrait. The former, located at the top left, is of the index or middle finger, and is "highly
comparable" to a print taken from Leonardo's St. Jerome. The palm print, found on Bianca's neck, is consistent with "Leonardo's use of his hands in creating texture and shading." Three minutes holes in the left
Fingerprint on "La Bella Principessa".
margin hint that the portrait was intended for the cover of a poetry book, perhaps in the sitter's honor.
The provenance of this supposed Leonardo masterpiece remains a mystery - little is known of this artwork before the 1990s, when it was sold at Christie's for $19,000. As an authenticated Leonardo drawing, the portrait is now worth an estimated $160 million -- and is held in a Swiss bank vault. It will be seen this March in a Gotheburg, Sweden show, "And There was Light: The Masters of the Renaissance Seen in a New Light".
UPDATE Summer 2010: Peter Paul Biro, who examined the fingerprint on this alleged Leonardo masterpiece, may be finding more than his fair share of fingerprints. Read the fascinating investigation of Biro in David Grann's New Yorker article of July, 2010.