Fred R. Kline Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, Verrocchio Workshop, "Head of Infant Jesus"

DISCOVERY

Leonardo da Vinci

"Holy Child"

Courtesy of Kline Art Research Associates, Santa Fe, NM

All written materials published on this Fred R. Kline Gallery webpage

for "Leonardo da Vinci, Holy Child"

For all permissions contact:

Fred R. Kline

FRK@KlineGallery.com ~ 505-9881103

7 Avenida Vista Grande / Suite B-7

Santa Fe, NM 87508

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Leonardo da Vinci, Holy Child

Annotated Record

Leonardo da Vinci

Born Vinci, Italy 1452- Died Cloux, near Amboise, France 1519

Florentine artist, scientist, and thinker

Leonardo da Vinci is considered the most multifaceted genius of the Italian Renaissance and a major influence in the history of Western Art and Culture.

Leonardo’s legendary renown as an artist has remained on the highest level from his own times to the present day in spite of his surprisingly small known body of work: traditionally some fifteen paintings and less than seventy sketches and drawings relating to those paintings; of those drawings, only a small percentage might be considered more finished preparatory studies. However, some 4,000 drawings of one kind and another are integrated into his Notebooks and speak of his mastery of the medium. The incomparable quality of Leonardo’s artistic body of work and the creative vigor of his scientific intellect have combined to idealize him as the classic Renaissance Man.

Among Leonardo’s works of art, no paintings or drawings are signed, no painting is dated, and only one date exists on a single early drawing. Authentication of authorship and dating of his artistic work is totally based on individual connoisseurship— educated opinion that is necessarily subjective and merged with some scientific objectivity.

The accumulated knowledge of Leonardo’s body of artistic work is altogether tied to individually perceived evidence from: the actual works, their comparative relationships, a few documents, and not least of all his voluminous Notebooks of scientific, philosophical, and general observations. Strangely , among the many thousands of Notebook pages, there is only one ambiguous dated entry that speaks of his artistic activity.

It is little wonder that authorship and dating questions can occupy scholars for a lifetime. Discoveries of new works over the last 100 years have been rare and controversial, and even a firm attribution to Leonardo connected to a discovery has rarely found consensus among scholars.

With Leonardo, it can be said, there is always a question coming up and going down with the sun, although he emphatically stated in his Notebooks that “The sun does not move.” Like other great historical figures, Leonardo appears after 500 years as a very bright presence but difficult to see. To “look again” is to see Leonardo da Vinci hiding in plain sight.

Artist (here attributed): Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Title: "Holy Child (Head of a Pensive Child in Three-Quarter View)"

Size: 5 ¼ x 4 ¼ in. / 13.3 x 10.8 cm. / 133 x 108 mm.

Date: Circa 1472-76, Florence

Medium: Red chalk (selectively wetted and rubbed) , white chalk heightening; traces of sepia ink framing outline; sepia ink notations at lower left (some cut off and obscured); on uncoated laid paper with corners cropped.

Watermark: A partial cut-off sun or star symbol. It is instructive to note that sixteen watermarks [up to 2003], most of them unique (including ‘Holy Child”), have been found on Leonardo's drawings. Comparatively, sixty-four watermarks on Michelangelo's drawings have been catalogued, fifty of them unique. Unique watermarks are obviously not a disqualifying factor for autograph drawings by either artist. No watermark has been found which might disqualify the accepted ca. 1472-76 watermark on “Holy Child”.

Inscription: Lower left recto, in dark gray ink in antique script, "Barache", a later added and mistaken attribution to Federico Barocci (1535-1612). In sepia ink, underlying the attribution, an unreadable possibly mirror-script word fragment (?) with a reinforced lowercase “c” (?) under the “B” that coincidentally suggests "carache" ( which may explain Christie's mistaken attribution to Annibale Carracci, (1560-1609). Above and apart from, but near the added “Barache”, there is a small outline in sepia ink suggesting a curved fingertip. The placement of the “fingertip” is in the close to exact area where the Virgin’s thumb of her left hand is resting on Infant St. John’s shoulder in the Louvre and National Gallery “Virgin of the Rocks”.

Condition: The drawing was received in very good condition, its backings lightly glued to an antique hand-decorated French-style mat (probably late 19thc./retained). Conservation by Marjorie Shelley, Metropolitan Museum of Art: several backings removed (verso of the drawing is blank); minor repairs by M.S. of an old-repaired small hole at upper right in the forehead area and at a smaller unrepaired hole lower right in the margin; no reworking was undertaken. Note: Underlying the small missing area at upper right and pasted as a rough repair to it, there was an antique handwritten fragment (probably 19th c.) in faded dark gray ink retrieved by M.S., apparently torn from a letter, that reads “…Giovanni…” (which suggests an odd scrap carelessly or temporarily applied by an owner).

Provenance:

[ Note: Early provenance is an hypothesis based on the attribution to Leonardo and the likely 17th c. French inscription (an attribution to “Barache”); and the drawing’s very good condition, implying a safely stored and little touched single collection. The French mat suggests French ownership into the 19th century. ]

Plausibly a Private French Collection, from ca. 1519; probably attributed in France to Barocci in 17th c. and possibly by descent in the same Private French Collection up to May 2000 when consigned to Christie’s

Christie’s East Auction, New York: "Old Masters, Frames, Etc.", May 23, 2000,

As Lot 34- “Attributed to Annibale Carracci”

Purchased by Fred R. Kline, Santa Fe, May 2000 (here attributed to Leonardo)

Fred R. Kline Gallery, Santa Fe, 2000-06

Private Collection, 2006-present

Exhibition: Fred R. Kline Gallery, Santa Fe, NM: “Selected Old Master Drawings”(# 3, here attributed to Leonardo da Vinci) , Winter & Spring 2006.

Publication: "Leonardo da Vinci, Holy Child: Annotated Record": www.klinegallery.com from 2006.

Comparative Paintings & Drawings

Paintings

Leonardo da Vinci, "Madonna of the Carnation", ca.1472-76, tempera (?) and oil on poplar, 62.3 x 48.5 cm. (24 ½ x 19 in.). Munich, Alte Pinakothek.

Leonardo da Vinci, "Benois Madonna", ca.1476-78, oil on wood transferred to canvas in 1824, 49.5 x 31.5 cm. (19.4 x 12.4 in.). St. Petersburg, Hermitage.

Leonardo da Vinci, “Ginevra d’Benci”, ca.1474, oil on panel, 42.7 x 37 cm. (17 x 14.5 in.), National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Leonardo da Vinci, “Adoration of the Magi”, ca.1481-82, oil on wood panels, 243 x 246 cm. (approx. 8 x 8 ft.). Florence, Uffizi.

Leonardo da Vinci, "Virgin of the Rocks", ca.1482-85, oil on wood transferred to canvas, 197.3 x 1220 cm. (77 ½ x 47 in.). Paris, Louvre.

Leonardo da Vinci, “Virgin of the Rocks”, II, ca.1495-99, oil on poplar, 189.5 x 120 cm. (74 ½ x 47 in.). London, National Gallery.

Leonardo da Vinci, “Virgin and Child with St. Anne and a Lamb”, ca. 1502-1513, oil on poplar, 168.5 x 130 cm. (66 x 51 in.). Paris, Louvre.

Here Attributed: Gianpietrino and Leonardo (originally Gianpietrino after a design by Leonardo), “Leda and Her Children”, ca.1508-13, oil and tempera (?) on alder, 128 x 105.5 cm. (50 x 41 ½ in.). Kassel, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen.

Drawings

Here Attributed: Leonardo da Vinci (originally School of Verrocchio), "Study of a Baby", ca.1472-76; 11 x 7.8 in. (279 x 198 mm), black chalk on uncoated laid paper; traditionally considered a verso drawing with the recto suggesting a study by Verrocchio for his finished drawing “Study of an Angel”. Florence, Uffizi.

Here Attributed: Leonardo da Vinci, “Holy Child”, ca. 1472-76, 5 ¼ x 4 ¼ in. (133 x 108 mm.), red chalk with white heightening. Private Collection.

Leonardo da Vinci, “Studies of the Christ Child” (specifically the head of the Christ Child in this sheet here dated ca. 1472-76; the sheet of other figure studies possibly as late as ca. 1502), 11 x 8 in. (285 x 198 mm.), red chalk on reddish prepared paper. Venice, Accademia.

Leonardo da Vinci “Studies of a Naked Child”; two sheets similarly titled and both here dated circa 1472-76. London, Windsor Castle Royal Library.

1. “Studies of a Naked Child”, Red Chalk, 5 ½ x 7 ½ in. (139.7 x 190.5 mm.), # 12,568.

2. “Studies of a Naked Child”, Silver point and pen, 6 ½ x 8 ½ in. (165.1 x 215.9 mm.), #12,569.

Leonardo da Vinci and Studio, "Head of a Child in Three Quarter View", ca. 1472-82, 5 ¼ x 4 ¾ in. (134 x 119 mm), metalpoint highlighted in white gouache; extensive studio-reworking with pen, brush, brown wash. Paris, Louvre.

Leonardo da Vinci , “Bust of an Infant in Profile to the Left”, ca.1495-97, 4 x 4 in. (100 x 100 mm), red chalk. London, Windsor Castle Royal Library.

Leonardo da Vinci, “Virgin and Child with Saints Anne and John the Baptist” /The Burlington House Cartoon , ca.1498-1508, mixed media: including charcoal and black and white chalk on light brown tinted paper mounted to canvas, 1415 x 1060 mm. (55.7 x 41.7 in.). London, National Gallery.

Leonardo da Vinci, “Study for the Head of a Soldier” [an example of a later red chalk head study], ca.1503-04, 9 x 7 in.( 227 x 186 mm), red chalk on prepared paper. Budapest, Szepmuveszeti.

Leonardo da Vinci, “Self Portrait” [an example of a later red chalk head study], c.1510-15, 14 x 8 ½ in. (333 x 215 mm.), red chalk on unprepared paper. Turin, Biblioteca Reale.

Selected Bibliography

Kenneth Clark."Leonardo da Vinci". Cambridge, 1939

A.E. Popham."The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci". New York, 1945

Jane Roberts. “A Dictionary of Michelangelo’s Watermarks”. Milan, 1988

Martin Kemp. “Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvelous Works of Nature and Man”. London, 1989.

Leo Steinberg. “The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion”. Chicago,1996.

David Alan Brown. "Leonardo da Vinci: Origins of a Genius". New Haven, 1998.

Rubin, Wright, & Penny. "Renaissance Florence: The Art of the 1470s". Catalogue associated with the Exhibition. National Gallery, London, 1999

Leo Steinberg. “Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper”. New York, 2001

Carmen C. Bambach, Editor. "Leonardo Da Vinci, Master Draftsman". Catalogue associated with the Exhibition. Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2003

Frank Zollner. “Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519: The Complete Paintings and Drawings” [with commentaries on the drawings by Johannes Nathan and Frank Zollner]. Cologne, 2003

Charles Nicholl. “Leonardo da Vinci, Flights of Mind”. New York, 2004

Dario Covi & L. S. Olschki. "Andrea del Verrocchio: Life and Work". Florence, 2005:

Fred R. Kline. "Leonardo’s Lost Holy Child" -- A Memoir of Discovery (with *Appendix Paper". Santa Fe, 2009, 2010 [ E-book publication on request]:

*Appendix Paper:

"Holy Child, A Recently Discovered Drawing Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci

Relating to his First Florentine Period Which Suggests:

Reattribution to Leonardo of a Verrocchio School Drawing Relating

to Leonardo’s First Florentine Period;

Revision of Three Other Related Drawings by Leonardo Relating

to his First Florentine Period;

Application of Holy Child and Two Related Drawings in Possibly Seven of

Leonardo’s Paintings and Another by Gianpietrino;

Revision of a Painting by Gianpietrino With Authorship Shared by Leonardo."

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Private Collection

By appointment

Museum exhibition of Holy Child

and E-book copy of Leonardo's Lost Holy Child for peer review

may be requested.