The Lost Leonardo The Holy Infants Embracing A Report by G. Stephen Holmes B.Sc.
Transworld: a division of Random House
UK cover
www.danbrown.com
US cover
Since publication in 2003, Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” has sold more than 25 million copies in hardback in North America alone. Dan Brown references a book by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince: The Templar Revelation. Picknett and Prince’s opening chapter is “The Secret Code of Leonardo da Vinci.” Both books propose that Leonardo included hidden symbolism in many of his religious paintings, subtly hiding ideas which at the time would have been considered heretical. As well as the Mona Lisa, in the Louvre in Paris, Dan Brown refers to other paintings by the Master, some in the Louvre, some in Italy.
Touchstone 1998, a division of Simon & Schuster.
Dan Brown’s book has spawned a number of guides and explanations, (not all of them complimentary!) Channel 4’s expose by Tony Robinson & Simon Raikes in Feb 2005 was quite damning! Simon Cox’s book is more thorough than the C4 documentary(!) & includes a number of colour plates. Michael O’Mara publishing, 2004
The most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa - but what did her enigmatic smile hide?
The Last Supper by Leonardo. circa 1495-98, Milan, Italy.
This close up of the Last Supper shows the controversial ‘disembodied hand’ holding a knife and the figure who some researchers claim is a woman. If so, could it be Mary Magdalene?
Leonardo’s Adoration of the Magi. Recent research has shown that the original painting underneath has a radically different theme. Research by Maurizio Seracini.
The first version of Leonardo’s Madonna of the Rocks, now hanging in the Louvre, Paris, was considered so subversive that a second version had to be painted.
This second version now hangs in the national Gallery, London.
The famous glass and steel pyramid at the entrance to the Louvre, Paris.
Penguin Books Published 2004. (Paperback 2005). Leonardo da Vinci is the most mysterious of all the great artists, continuing to inspire and intrigue centuries after his death. Who lies beneath the legend of the “Renaissance genius�? What is the real story behind his elusive masterpieces and tantalising notebooks?
The Paintings of Leonardo
Leonardo da Vinci • Born in 1452 in Vinci near Florence • Attended the workshop of Andrea Verrocchio in Florence in about 1468 • Produced a handful of paintings in the following 12 years before moving to Milan
Oxford University Press Published 2004. INSIDE THE MIND OF A RENAISSANCE GENIUS What makes Leonardo’s work so astonishing? What vision drove his art and his invention? Martin Kemp, the world’s leading authority on Leonardo, cuts through the dense veil of legend, challenges the myths, and offers an unparalleled portrait of this extraordinary man.
Martin Kemp’s choice • Scholars vary as to the number of Leonardo paintings. • Professor Kemp chooses 23 • Carmen Bambach just 15 • Angela Chiesa has 26 (including 2 drawings) • I have added two or three paintings to Martin Kemp’s 23 and 4 or 5 drawings at the end.
The Angel and Tobias From the studio of Verrocchio.
No. 1
The Baptism of Christ. Verrocchio and Leonardo.
No. 2
The Annunciation
No. 3
Madonna with a Carnation. ‘Alte Pinakotheek’, Munich.
No. 4
Madonna Litta. Hermitage, St.Petersburg.
No. 5
Benois Madonna Hermitage, St. Petersburg.
No. 6
Angela Chiesa, 1967. English edition, 1985. ‘The Mona Lisa’s smile is the supreme example of that complex inner life, caught and fixed in durable material, which Leonardo in all his notes claims as one of the chief aims of his art’. Sir Kenneth Clark, (later Lord Clark).
Madonna & Child with a Pomegranate. Washington. This is a Leonardo “project�.
Another Annunciation
The Louvre, Paris.
Ginevra de’Benci, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. And on the back...
No. 7
Saint Jerome. Pinacoteca, Vaticana, Rome.
No. 8
Adoration of the Kings. Leonardo. Uffizi, Florence c 1480
No. 9
Milanese period (1482-1499)
Virgin of the Rocks. Paris
No. 10
Lady with an Ermine. Cracow, Czartoryski Museum. Cecilia Gallerani; (mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Leonardo’s patron).
No. 11
“La belle Ferroniere” Louvre, Paris. Lucrezia Crivelli.
No. 12
Portrait of a Musician. Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan.
No. 13
Virgin of the Rocks. London
No. 14
Copy
No. 15
The Last Supper No. 16
Portrait of a Lady; possibly Beatrice d’Este. Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan.
No. 17
Bacchus / St. John. Louvre, Paris
No. 18
St. John. Louvre, Paris
No. 19
Madonna with the Yarnwinder. Duke of Buccleuch collection. (stolen in 2003).
No. 20
Madonna of the Yarnwinder. Private collection, New York
No. 21
The Virgin, St. Anne, Jesus and a Lamb. Louvre, Paris.
No. 22
Er.. Leonardo da Vinci. c 1503-1506
No. 23
The following drawings are from this book.
Portrait of Isabella d’Este. Louvre, Paris
Isabella d'Este Marchioness of Mantua
The Virgin, St. Anne, Jesus and St. John. Burlington Cartoon. National Gallery.
Vitruvian Man. Accademia, Venice.
Self Portrait? Bibioteca Reale, Turin.
The versatile Leonardo da Vinci.
Of “world famous� images, Leonardo created at least 4, even though evidence of the self portrait being a Leonardo work is slim!
The Battle of Anghiari
Leonardo drawing
Infants
Leda and the Swan Leonardo’s studies of embracing children may have been for the following painting depicting Leda, Zeus as the swan and the two sets of twins. This painting was lost in the 17th century. It is presumed that it was destroyed because of the content of the painting.
The Head of Leda: Leonardo
Raphael
Leonardo sketch.
After Leonardo, in Rome
Also after Leonardo; Gallery Borghese, Rome
Cesare da Sesto, (1515), Wilton House, Salisbury.
Giampetrino; Kassel
Were the drawings of children for the lost Leda or were they for some other project of which we have no knowledge? It is my view that the drawings were for another project: The Lost Leonardo
The Infants Christ and Saint John Embracing; “concept” by Leonardo.
In 1978, the following painting was sold at an auction of old masters in London.
Giampetrino. The Infants Christ and Saint John Embracing. c. 1500
So is this the Lost Leonardo?
The Virgin of the Rocks. Leonardo. Circa 1490-1508 National Gallery, London. This painting contains the two holy children, Jesus and John, with Mary and an angel. It also contains one of the most famous images in the world.
The Angel Uriel. Head by Leonardo.
Kenneth Clark (1902-1983) was an acclaimed Leonardo scholar. First published in 1939 as “Leonardo: An Account of his Development as an Artist�, this book has been revised by Martin Kemp in 1988.
From the BBC series in 1969 Sir Kenneth Clark became an international celebrity as a result of this series and book, and having been a Director of the National Gallery, was an expert in Leonardo’s art.
Variations on a theme. In 1987 the following appeared on the cover of the satirical magazine, Private Eye.
What image are we looking at? The painting is one of two by Raphael from around 1515. The following version with the Cherubs is in Munich (very close to the Madonna with a Carnation) and the other is in Italy. The following 5 paintings are all by Raphael, and they show two infants; the two Holy children, Jesus and John the Baptist, sometimes with a Mother and twice with Joseph and Elizabeth, John’s mother.
The Twentieth Century Speculation on the existence of a missing Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece
Book 1
Notes and Catalogue by Angela Ottino della Chiesa. 1967. (revised and published in English in 1985).
The Virgin of the Rocks. Leonardo. 1483-1507! Louvre, Paris.
In Angela’s book as No 15:
Page 95
Derivations of No. 15 Includes the two Holy Infants embracing, protected by Mary, and a background reminiscent of the Virgin of the Rocks.
Bernardino de’Conti. Brera, Milan.
The attribution to Marco d’Oggiono is, I believe, comparatively recent. Professor Pietro Marani of Milan has recently (2002) attributed the London Virgin of the Rocks to Leonardo da Vinci and Marco d’Oggiono.
Marco d’Oggiono. The Thuélin Madonna, Paris.
Bernardino Luini; Prado, Madrid.
Joos van Cleve
Angela Chiesa comments on this painting: This group of the two infants in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples is probably..
Leonardo.
..derived from part of this drawing in the Royal Library, Windsor.
So we found a copy of the book:
THE DRAWINGS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI IN THE COLLECTION OF HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN AT WINDSOR CASTLE KENNETH CLARK with Carlo Pedretti PHAIDON 1968
Book 2
Originally published in 1935 as the Drawings in the collection of His Majesty the King.
Picture 12564, Royal Library Windsor. Leonardo.
Comments “The motif of the two Holy Children, (Jesus and John), embracing belongs to Leonardo's Milanese period, (1482-1499). It seems to have been carried out in a finished picture, now lost, and perhaps this was sent to Flanders, for nearly all the innumerable copies of the subject are Flemish. Several of these, including two by Joos van Cleve in The Hague and Naples and one by Quentin Messys at Chatsworth, are mentioned by Gustav Glück in Pantheon, 1928.”
Sir Kenneth Clark (1968)
We found the article mentioned by Kenneth Clark: "Schicksale Einer Komposition Lionardos" Inevitable Development of a Composition by Leonardo By Gustav Glück (Translated from original German) Pantheon, 10th October 1928. There is hardly anything else that gives us such a deep insight into the essence of Renaissance art in the north as the widespread composition to be found in numerous Dutch paintings of differing worth of the two Holy Children, Jesus and John, who seated bare side by side embrace and kiss each other tenderly. Over half a dozen of these repetitions originate from the studio of one of the most significant representatives of that movement in the Netherlands, Joos van Cleve, the master painter of Antwerp. Article 1
We have long known that the delightful invention of the group of children does not originate from Joos van Cleve himself, but is to be attributed to someone much greater. We have long known that the delightful invention of the group of children does not originate from Joos van Cleve himself, but is to be attributed to someone much greater. The fundamental idea of the group originates without doubt from no less a personality than Leonardo. We can go even further: exactly the same composition as preserved in the copies of Joos van Cleve and his studio must also have existed done by Leonardo himself, to whom alone the grandeur and charm of such an invention can be attributed.
It is true that no original in his hand, (painting or cartoon), has been found, but the fact that one did exist is proved by a number of repeats, which undoubtedly originate from the Lombard school of the great master.
These include the paintings at Hampton Court Palace and in the former Doetsch collection in London. Only the first of these is known to us, (Gl端ck), from our own observation. No connoisseur of painting even as a result of a cursory glance will attribute this to any other than an Italian and in particular Lombard hand.
The Infant Christ and Saint John Embracing Marco d’Oggiono. Hampton Court.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this painting was attributed to Leonardo.
The Infant Christ and Saint John Embracing Joos van Cleve. Note the similarity between this painting and the previous painting.
This, (Lombard hand), is indicated by the tender fashioning of the little bodies with the delicate sfumato unknown to the Dutch, still further by the landscape, which with the dark scenes of the rock in the background, the bright outlook to the right and the lovingly formed foliage plants and herbs displays the style of Leonardo and his school.
If the initial concept of the group originates from Leonardo, as we understand from the page of studies at Windsor, it is quite probable that he too produced the prototype for the numerous Dutch and Italian versions and also the transformation by Bernardino Luini.
The Holy Family with Saint John. Bernardino Luini; Prado, Madrid. Referred to as a “derivation� of the Virgin of the Rocks by Angela Chiesa in 1967.
This may have been a painting or a cartoon by the hand of Leonardo, or more likely a broad picture with the children alone. The background would have been one of the landscapes full of rocks and grotto's so characteristic of the great master and an indication thereof is to be found in the rough sketch at Windsor.
Joos van Cleve; Mauritshuis, ‘s-Gravenhage
Joos van Cleve; Capodimonte, Naples
Quentin Messys; Chatsworth House
Bernardino Luini (Institut de France)
Let’s digress for a while!
The odds of winning the lottery! Choose 6 from 49 numbers 49*48*47*46*45*44 1*2*3*4*5*6 49*47*46*44*3 = 2303*2024*3
13,983,816 to 1 nearly 14 million to 1
Leonardo da Vinci drawings • More than 300 in the Royal Library, Windsor • More than 100 in the Institute de France Library in Paris • A.E. Popham: the Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci; of 300 pages of drawings, less than a dozen are in private hands.
Leonardo da Vinci Paintings • 7 in the Louvre in Paris • 2 in the National Gallery, London. (The Virgin of the Rocks & the Burlington “Cartoon”). • 2/3 in the U.S.A. • 1 in Crakow, Poland, 1 in Munich, Germany • 2/3 in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg • 7-10 in Italy. Rome, Milan, Florence, Venice. • +/- 24 in total; 1 in private hands.
What are the chances of finding a lost Leonardo masterpiece? More than 14,000,000 to 1? More than 100,000,000 to 1? What would that painting be worth? The odds of a painting establishing itself as of Leonardo’s oeuvre are very long indeed!
Introducing the odds is my way of showing that this is a truly remarkable story. Leonardo da Vinci, creator of two of the best known images in the world, the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, who left only a handful of paintings, still has some undiscovered secrets for the 21st century. Consensus seems to point to 24 “autograph� Leonardo paintings, the Leda & the Swan was lost in the seventeenth century; The Holy Infants Embracing was lost in the nineteenth century. What are the odds against finding it?
Leading Leonardo Scholars CARLO PEDRETTI (Professor of Leonardo School, UCLA) MARTIN KEMP (Professor of Art History Oxford University. Advisor to the BBC series “Leonardo”) PIETRO MARANI (Formerly at the Brera in Milan) CARMEN BAMBACH, DAVID BROWN, KENNNETH KEELE KENNETH CLARK (Director of National Gallery in 1933) BERNARD BERENSON (Boston and Harvard; Clark’s tutor) JEAN PAUL RICHTER (Translated Leonardo’s notes & letters) GUSTAV WAAGEN (“father” of Art History) on the periphery STEPHEN HOLMES (Author / researcher) SIMON COX (Author / “Historian of the obscure”)
A lucky find Recorded viewing of a painting
Being the Collection of Dr. Ludwig Mond (1835-1909)
Richter wrote the Literary works of Leonardo in 1883, translating hundreds of fragments of the Master’s writings, including a reference to the drawing in the Royal Library, Windsor.
Dr Ludwig Mond bought this painting BY LEONARDO in 1895; Christ and Saint John Embracing. By 1909, it was attributed to Marco d’Oggiono. (Formerly in the Doetsch Collection & mentioned by Gustav Glück).
COMMENTS So many repetitions and variations of this composition by pupils of Leonardo exist, that it is reasonable to suppose that it is founded on a lost picture from his hand. (J.P. Richter - 1910)
Richter illustrates this comment with four paintings; ●
Marco d’Oggiono at Hampton Court
●
Joos van Cleve at the Capodimonte in Naples
●
Bernardino de’Conti at the Brera in Milan
●
Bernardino Luini in Madrid
Followers of Leonardo - Italian •
Marco d’Oggiono
•
Bernardino Luini
•
Bernardino de’Conti
•
Giampietrino
•
Francesco Melzi Flemish Joos van Cleve Quentin Messys (Bernard van Orley)
Book 3
Francesca Debolini
Leonardo’s Legacy to Europe In both theory and practice, Leonardo's artistic influence in 16th- and 17th-century Europe, notably France, Spain, Flanders and Germany was immense. Copies, variants and engravings demonstrate how eagerly his range of compositions, his typological innovations, and his criteria of construction were welcomed. Along with Albrecht Dßrer, who, like Leonardo, studied physiognomy and proportion, other great Northern masters were seduced by his genius. Among them was the German Hans Holbein, possibly in Lombardy in 1517, whose halflength female figures bore the stamp of Leonardo; the Fleming Quentin Metsys, epitome of Northern Mannerism; and Joos van Cleve, master painter of the guild of Antwerp. The practical influence of Leonardo was still to be seen in individuals as far removed as Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt van Rijn, and interest in his theoretical legacy was stimulated by the publication of his writings. The first printed edition of the Treatise on Painting, with illustrations by Nicolas Poussin, was published in Paris in 1651.
Joos van Cleve and Workshop. Art Institute of Chicago.
Luis de Morales. Prado Museum, Madrid
Article 2
The Infants Christ and Saint John Embracing Leonardo plays a special role in the development of the motif. His interest in it is manifested in some of his early drawings. Preliminary studies for the Madonna of the Rocks show his repeated struggle with the motif and the intensity with which he pursued it. They also reveal the various solutions he considered possible. His unique contribution was that he related the two children to each other without concentrating on the traditional mother-child relationship between Mary and Christ. John is transformed from a bystander to a person equal to Christ, an innovation which reached the utmost limits of the spiritual content of the motif and could only be achieved by an artist like Leonardo who had only loose ties to the dogma of the Church. It was still possible to create variations on the theme, but none of the artists of the post-Leonardo period including Joos van Cleve were able to add anything new to the idea. Ilse Hecht, Art Institute of Chicago. Apollo magazine 1981.
•Sir Kenneth Clark •Gustav Glück •Dr. Jean Paul Richter •Ilse Hecht •(Prof.) Carlo Pedretti •(Prof.) Martin Kemp •Francesca Debolini •Alessandro Vezzosi •Jochen Sander •(Prof.) John Shearman •Angela Ottino della Chiesa •S. Speth-Holterhoff •Ludwig Goldscheider
In the last 100 years, all these scholars and researchers have written about Leonardo’s invention of the two Holy Infants embracing, for example….
Alessandro Vezzosi (1996)
Book 4
Leonardesque paintings of the two Holy Infants embracing are known.... A. Vezzosi
Ludwig Goldscheider • I have invited the reader to consider a new theory of Leonardo as the restorer of the “Nile”. • Many similar things may be found by an inquirer in the captions and in the comparative illustrations. • London, 1943 • Goldscheider is the ONLY author who suggests that his readers may be able to draw their own conclusions from looking at paintings! Book 5
St. John. Detail of the Madonna of the Rocks, Louvre, Paris. Saint John ?
The Leonardo becomes lost 1490 to 1870
COLLECTION OF LORD ASHBURTON. This collection, one of the most select in England, was formed by the late 1st Lord Ashburton, more generally known by his former name of Alexander Baring. (1770-1848). Happily, his son, the present 2nd Lord Ashburton, William Bingham Baring, (b. 1799), has inherited with the collection the taste to appreciate and the desire to increase it. Gustav Waagen visited the home of William Baring in Piccadilly in London in 1851, and wrote the following: ITALIAN SCHOOL LEONARDO DA VINCI - 1. An angel lifting the covering from the bed of the Infant Christ, who has fallen asleep in the arms of the Virgin ; the infant St. John and an angel standing by.
2. Christ and the Baptist as children, also attributed to Leonardo. This has his well-known character of heads and also in a high degree his sfumato or fused handling, but the understanding of the forms is not refined enough for him, nor the feeling sufficiently intense. I am therefore inclined to consider this a very beautiful work by Bernardino Luini, a celebrated pupil of Leonardo da Vinci. BERNARDINO LUINI - 1. The Virgin and Child.‌ This is the last recorded viewing of Leonardo’s original painting before it became the subject of speculation.
Christ and the Baptist as children, also attributed to Leonardo. Computer generated image of the Leonardo, as viewed by Waagen in 1851.
ITALIAN PAINTERS CRITICAL STUDIES OF THEIR WORKS by GIOVANNI MORELLI LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1893 There is only one picture by Bernardino Luini in the English National Gallery - “Christ among the Doctors”, formerly ascribed to Leonardo - but in several private collections in London he is represented. ..a picture, under the name of Leonardo, representing the Infant Saviour embracing the little St. John, is in the Ashburton collection;… Morelli had not seen the painting in the Ashburton collection; he was merely confirming Waagen’s hypothesis that it was a Luini.
Christ among the Doctors. Bernardino Luini. NG, London. Formerly ascribed to Leonardo.
The Index of Paintings sold in the British Isles during the nineteenth century In twenty volumes The Provenance Index of the Getty Art History Information Program
Volume 2, 1st January 1806 - 31st December 1810
Page 540 PAINTINGS date sold
22nd August 1807
place
Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire
auctioneer
Harry Phillips
Painter and Description: Leonardo da Vinci | The Infant
Saviour and Saint John, in a high state of preservation; possessing all the beauty, energy and characteristic perfection's of this great master. Sold by
William Beckford, writer
Price, Buyer Gs290, Dr. Hastings Elwin, Art Dealer The sale was reported in the magazine the Gentleman’s Magazine in September 1807. The highest prices were paid for old masters; 350 guineas for a Nativity by Ludovico Carracci and 290 guineas for this Leonardo da Vinci.
William Beckford (1760-1843)
William Beckford By George Romney
c
The painting came from this Italian Villa in Frascati, Italy
The Villa contains this archive, compiled in 1603. We tried to look at this gigantic volume, but were fortunate that in the early 1960’s, Cesare d’Onofrio had beaten us to it. He published his research in:
Art Magazine: March 1964 Cesare d’Onofrio The Inventory of 1603 compiled by Monsignor Gian-Batiste Agucchi.
Article 3
Painting 39 / Project 39! 39. Due putti, chi si baciano insieme, di Lionardo da Vinci, con ornamento d'ebano
39. Un quadro in tavola di due putti, chi si abbracciano insieme alto palmi due, e mezo cornice nera di Lionardo da Vinci. Segnato N. 39 Height Two and a half "palms" 2.5 * 23cm = 57.5 cm. Labelled No. 39.
Painting No. 39 from the Agucchi Inventory, 1603.
From an 1839 book, published in Paris: the letters between Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands and her father. From a letter to her father, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian I, dated 17th July 1516 The Pictures in the Library in the Royal Palace, Melines, (Mechelen, now Belgium) Firstly, a painting of two children kissing each other. (“Perhaps the painting was sent to Flanders as nearly all the copies are Flemish.” Kenneth Clark. I believe this is the Marco d’Oggiono copy now in the Queen’s collection.)
The motif was known in Flanders before 1516; this painting by Bernard van Orley, who, as a court painter for Margaret of Austria would have been required to copy existing paintings, is from the period (15101520), the painting by Quentin-Messys in the Duke of Devonshire’s collection at Chatsworth is circa 1515 and Joos van Cleve’s copies date from around 1520. Copy of a painting by B. (van) ORLEY, from a “gallery painting” by David Teniers II
The Gallery Paintings of David Tenniers
The collection of Archduke Leopold in Antwerp (another digression).
David Teniers the younger. The artist in the gallery of Archduke Leopold. 1651. All these paintings contain the dogs, the artist and the Archduke. Teniers “catalogued� some 230 paintings in miniature.
Bernard van Orley After a lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci Painted circa 1510-1520. Bernard van Orley was a court painter for Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands. [S. Speth-Holterhoff (1957)]
Jesus and John as Children by Quentin Massys, Chatsworth, circa 1515
Leonardo’s manuscript notes contain only incidental references to his masterpieces in painting and do not afford us such comprehensive information as we could wish. J.P. Richter 1883 - The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci. Re-published in 1939. From what meagre notes that we have, we conclude that the lost painting of the Two Holy Infants was completed between 1486 and 1493, whilst Leonardo was in Milan, as a “derivation” of the Virgin of the Rocks. He painted the Last Supper c 1494-7.
Leonardo painted “Domeniddio Putto e Giovannino che s'abbracciano” [The God Child and John Embracing during his Milanese period. A painting, (the copy by Marco d’Oggiono now in Hampton Court), was sent to Flanders where it was copied by Joos van Cleve, Quentin-Metsys and others, but the original was observed by Marco, Bernardino Luini and Bernardino de’Conti, Leonardo’s Lombard contemporaries. Like the Paris “Madonna of the Rocks”, Leonardo’s original painting was considered subversive, so the symbolic rocks and plants were “over-painted” with a crude brown varnish, so that the children could be given a humanistic view. They appeared to float in a sea of “dark brown soup”.
The painting was catalogued in 1603 by Gian-Batiste Agucchi. It remained in the hands of this family for nearly 200 years through various dynastic changes, ending up in Villa Borghese in Rome when the Borghese family won a legal suit against the Colonna family for an estate in 1775.
From comprehensive research of the families who owned the painting, we know that William Beckford bought the picture number 39 from the Borghese family in Rome, at Villa Borghese in 1798 (through his 'agent', Lord Tresham.. Beckford sold it in 1807 to Dr. Hastings Elwin. Elwin died in Dexember 1810 and would have sold it to Alexander Baring before 1811. (Elwin’s paintings were sold at auction, again by Harry Phillips, in January 1811, and the Leonardo was not amongst the collection). Alexander Baring (1st Lord Ashburton) died in 1848 leaving his collection to his son, William. The second Lord Ashburton, William Bingham Baring, in whose house Waagen viewed the painting in 1851, died in 1864 and his title passed to his brother Francis Baring, who died in 1868. The Leonardo painting referenced between 1490 and 1851 simply “vanished” between early 1864 and 1869. (Morelli did not see the painting before commenting on it in 1893).
1490 - 1851. The painting has a continuous “provenance”. (1490-1603 Provenance is the result of learned speculation 1603-1851 Provenance is “recorded”) 1864. William Baring dies and the painting is lost. 1883-2002. More than a dozen Leonardo scholars, from Jean Paul Richter to Alessando Vezzosi, speculate on the existence of The Lost Leonardo. Actual provenance is 1603-2010; 9 years more than the Mona Lisa.
Part 2. The Re-discovered Leonardo!
Sale of Old Masters London, December 1978
Giampetrino. The Infants Christ and Saint John Embracing. c. 1500
The discovery of the Century! Immediately after purchase, an old parchment covering the back of the poplar panel was removed revealing an old collectors mark...
Height of panel= 57.5 cm (two and a half palms - palmi due e mezo ) The original collectors mark from the inventory, made in 1603 by G.B. Agucchi.
“Giampietrino� or Giampetrino (or Gian..) was a follower of Leonardo. Like Bernardino Luini, he used black backgrounds.
Soon after purchase in December 1978, the present owners commissioned Arthur Lucas, chief restorer at the National Gallery in London, to clean the brown varnish off the edges of the painting.
s
Before cleaning
After cleaning
The report on the restoration. On removing this semi-opaque varnish and brownish black paint there was no sign of copper resinate glazing being used over the raised, thick ivy leaves. Leonardo and his school, uniquely, never used oil glazing paints on greens and flesh colours. There was no technical reason found for toning down the foliage, so this brownish black glazing was put on probably because it was thought to be too frivolous for a religious subject. The major change to this painting due to cleaning is the revealing of the foliage and the rocks so that the Holy Children appear to be in a grotto. The florae are drawn and painted to the highest quality, equal to those in the ‘Virgin of the Rocks’ in the National Gallery, London, or to those painted by Titian or DĂźrer and it was well worth the effort to reveal them. Arthur Lucas 24th April 1979
This image was published in the book “The Early Italian Paintings in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen” by Prof. John Shearman in 1983 as a comparison with the painting by Marco d’Oggiono, then at Hampton Court. Sadly, Professor Shearman died in 2003. John Shearman was amazed that the painting had been missed by serious collectors and museums and confirmed that it was sold for less than £2,000, although the restoration cost double that amount.
After cleaning
The painting was shown to Professor Carlo Pedretti in September 1979. “Thank you for showing me Leonardo’s Holy Children” “...the evidence provided by the painting itself which I do not hesitate to recognise as being done by the same hand as the London Virgin of the Rocks.” “Above all, the scientific character of the extraordinary background of rocks and vegetation is so intimately related to everything Leonardo did in his study of natural forms.”
Carlo Pedretti UCLA, 14th October 1979
The Infants Christ and Saint John Embracing; a composition by Leonardo da Vinci. The re-discovery of a Masterpiece For 120 years, art historians have been speculating on the existence of this painting. For the previous four centuries, various wealthy and influential people owned this Leonardo painting of the two Holy Infants embracing, and it has been viewed in the collections of William Beckford and Alexander Baring. Margaret of Austria owned a similar painting, and there is now a very fine copy in Hampton Court Palace.
Professor Carlo Pedretti, Sir Kenneth Clark and Arthur Lucas have viewed this very painting and pronounced it as equal to the Virgin of the Rocks. Professor Martin Kemp has stated that the painting could have been by Francesco Melzi, (an immediate follower of Leonardo), and commented on the superb quality of the anemones. “The painting breathes the spirit of Leonardo and is a very fine work�, he wrote in 1985. Virgin of the Rocks, National Gallery, London.
There have been three Leonardo da Vinci paintings in England for more than two hundred years. The Virgin of the Rocks and the Burlington Cartoon have been in the National Gallery for the last hundred years; the Holy Infants Embracing has been “lost� for nearly one hundred years, from 1864 and secreted in a secure location since it was bought at auction in 1978 as a very dark, over-painted student work. If William Beckford had not purchased the work at Villa Borghese, Rome, in 1798, this painting would have been the Leonardo with the longest continuous provenance, (even longer than the Mona Lisa), on display in Rome.
The Holy Infants Embracing by Leonardo da Vinci
Part of the purpose of a proposed book is to publicise the “image” of the Holy Infants Embracing. The National Gallery makes over £100,000 per year from the image of Vincent’s Sunflowers. The Angel Uriel from the London Virgin of the Rocks is also a popular image amongst visitors to the National Gallery. I believe that the image of the two infants Jesus and John in a humanistic embrace could become as popular as either of the two other Leonardo paintings in Britain.
This painting truly is an autograph Leonardo.
Leonardo’s drawing
From painting 39.
Comparison of “the superb” anemones!
Leonardo’s drawing
Folio 14 Codex B2173, Institute de France,
From painting 39.
Comparison of Violets
From painting 39.
Leonardo’s drawing
Comparison of Rocks
Painting 39.
Virgin of the Rocks
Comparison of hands
The re-discovered Leonardo! A “one billion to one� painting.
Some Variations.
Joos van Cleve and Workshop. Royal Museum, Brussels
Francoise Boucher
Joos van Cleve, Frankfurt
Leonardo British Museum
Guido Reni
Jan van Amstel?
Peter Paul Rubens
Nicolas Poussin, the Holy Family on the Steps
<-- Bernardino Luini -->
Andrea Schiavone
The revelation of the Painting
The Holy Infants Embracing Leonardo da Vinciâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lost masterpiece Painted in Milan circa 1486-1490