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Here attributed to

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

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

Red chalk (selectively wetted), over some traces of stylus around profile, on unprepared cream paper with traces of a sepia ink framing outline along the edges.

5 ¼ x 4 ¼ inches (133 x 108 mm.)

Watermark: A partial sun symbol: the remaining left half of a sun lying within a remaining left half of a circle; the sun’s rays are represented by three block-like triangular shapes.

Inscription lower left recto, in dark gray ink, "Barache"( probably an early attribution to Federico Barocci, 1535-1612; a later possible lowercase “c” in sepia ink may have been incorporated into the “B” to suggest "Carache" (possibly a second attribution to Annibale Carracci, 1560-1609). However, the reinforced “c” may also be part of an unrelated passage in sepia ink that has been cut off at the lower left corner.

Above the “B”, in sepia ink, a suggestion of a curved fingertip.

Condition: Good. Conserved by Marjorie Shelley, Metropolitan Museum of Art: several backings removed (verso of the drawing is blank); minor repairs by MS of old repaired tear at upper right in the forehead area and at small hole lower right in the margin; overall good condition. Underlying the old repair at upper right, MS retrieved a tantalizing but probably unrelated handwritten antique fragment in dark gray ink possibly torn from a letter that reads “…Giovanni…”.

Provenance: Presumed Private Collection (no further information was given by Christie’s after later inquiries) to Christie’s East Auction, New York/Old Masters, Etc. /5.23.2000 /Lot 34: as “Attributed to Annibale Carracci”; to Fred R. Kline Gallery; to Collection of Fred & Jann Kline, Santa Fe.

Exhibited Only: as Workshop of Verrocchio in “Selected Old Master Drawings”, Summer 2000. As Leonardo da Vinci, Holy Child (Here Attributed) in “Selected Old Master Drawings”, Winter 2002/Summer-Fall 2005/Winter-Spring 2006, Fred R. Kline Gallery, Santa Fe, NM.

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The recently discovered drawing in the Kline collection here attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, Holy Child (Head of a Pensive Child in Three-Quarter View), compares closely with the Leonardo drawing in the Louvre, Head of a Child in Three-Quarter View. Both of the drawings are clearly studies for the head of the Infant St. John the Baptist in the Louvre painting The Virgin of the Rocks.

The Kline Holy Child offers almost exactly the same size and angle of the head as the Louvre Head of a Child, which in turn matches close to exactly the size and head angle of the Infant St. John’s head in the Louvre painting. It should be noted that this scientific comparison using a tracing of the Louvre drawing was carried out in 2001 by the Louvre and National Gallery, London. Additionally, and quite surprisingly, it should also be noted that, with the exception of the Kline Holy Child, no other published drawing in museums or private collections has been suggested or described as a comparable study for the Infant St. John the Baptist in the Louvre The Virgin of the Rocks.

According to the former Louvre chief curator of drawings Francoise Viatte, when further compared to the Virgin of the Rocks, the Louvre Head of a Child shows the eyelids and direction of the light to be different from those qualities depicted in the painting. Additionally, and more importantly, Viatte also points out that the Louvre drawing has been extensively reworked: in the outlines of the head, in the eyes-the nose-the mouth-the ear-the hair. After his study in 1903, Bernard Berenson wrote of the drawing: “The Louvre head for Saint John has preserved little of da Vinci’s own work”. Viatte in a recent essay, nevertheless defends the surviving Leonardesque quality lying under the “reworking”, and perceives as original the metalpoint delinations of the hair and facial features.

On the other hand, the Kline Holy Child has not been reworked and offers an unadulterated example of Leonardo’s exquisite drawing technique. In the Kline drawing the eyelids of the child, the direction of the light on his face, the sublime facial expression at once pensive and meditative all prove to be closely consistent with those details in the Louvre painting. In that regard, Holy Child is persuasive as a first idea or even as a model drawing while the Louvre reworked Head of a Child seems a later version, a fragment possibly cut from the lost cartoon .

The Kline Holy Child is drawn in a style wholly consistent with Leonardo’s manner of using red chalk, and in fact compares closely in technique and quality to one of the master’s greatest red chalk drawings, Study for the Head of a Soldier in the Battle of Anghiari (Budapest), although, ironically, the disposition of the subjects—a warrior and an infant—could not contrast more dramatically. Like the Head of the Soldier, Holy Child was drawn naturalistically in a reserved technique, with delicate sfumato tonal effects, in a left-handed manner, and undoubtedly from a live model. The uncommon vertical hatching lines that seem to appear in the sfumato effects in the left half of Holy Child may be explained either as an instance of Leonardo’s turning the sheet in a left-handed maneuver as he drew, or perhaps it is just the effect of rubbing-in the chalk with his finger and thus enhancing the chain-lines inherent in the laid paper. The coated-paper quality of Head of a Soldier covers over the similar chain-line characteristics of the laid paper which, however, one can observe on its verso.

A further observation suggests that Leonardo quickly returned to the Kline Holy Child—at lower left and above the “B” of an early attribution. Here Leonardo drew in sepia ink a curved-fingertip-suggestion denoting where the Virgin’s thumb was to embrace the neck and shoulder of the Infant St. John. An equally quick red chalk note at upper left (above what appears to be more common diagonally drawn lines), possibly his last faint strokes with the chalk, shows the briefest idea of hair to be developed on the child’s head, much like the wispy strands of hair found on Leonardo’s red chalk Self Portrait in Turin.

It should be noted, most interestingly, that the Kline Holy Child offers a close variation of the heads of the two Infant Jesus figures in two early paintings by Leonardo: the Munich Madonna of the Carnation (circa 1475) and the St. Petersburg Benois Madonna (circa 1478-80). This resemblence clearly illustrates Leonardo’s continuing interest in developing a beautiful head of a holy child that in his drawings reached its highest development in three examples: the National Gallery, London heads of the Infants Jesus and St. John in The Burlington House Cartoon; plausibly, in the original version of the Louvre’s now made-over Head of a Child; and, in the recently discovered and here attributed Kline Holy Child.

The Kline Holy Child, one of the most hauntingly beautiful of Leonardo’s drawings, may be considered the study closest to the master’s intention for the prayerful and serene Infant St. John as manifested in the Louvre painting The Virgin of the Rocks. Its rare quality suggests no other author but Leonardo capable of this supreme realization.

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Comparative works cited:

DRAWINGS

Leonardo da Vinci, Head of a Child in Three Quarter View (metalpoint highlighted in white gouache; reworked with pen, brush, brown wash); Musee du Louvre, Paris.

Leonardo, Study for the Head of a Soldier in the “Battle of Anghiari” (red chalk); Szepmuveszeti, Budapest.

Leonardo, Self Portrait (red chalk); Biblioteca Reale, Turin.

Leonardo, Virgin and Child with Saints Anne and John the Baptist (The Burlington House Cartoon), charcoal, soft black chalk, white chalk highlights; National Gallery, London.

PAINTINGS

**Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna of the Carnation; Alte Pinakothek, Munich.**

Leonardo, Benois Madonna/; Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

Leonardo, The Virgin of the Rocks(1), Musee du Louvre, Paris.

PRIMARY REFERENCE

Extensive use was made of the 2003 Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition catalogue Leonardo Da Vinci, Master Draftsman; Edited by Carmen C. Bambach.