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A Double Leonardo. on Two Exhibitions (And Their Catalogues) in London and Paris;:'

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A Double Leonardo. on Two Exhibitions (And Their Catalogues) in London and Paris;:' Originalveröffentlichung in: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 76 (2013), S. 417-427 A usstellungsbesprechung A double Leonardo. On two exhibitions (and their catalogues) in London and Paris;:' Luke Syson/Larry Keith (ed.), Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, London: National Gallery, 2011, 319 pages, ills., £29, ISBN 978-1-85709-491-6 / Vincent Delieuvin (ed.), La Sainte Anne. L’ultime chef-d ’ceuvre de Leonard de Vinci, Paris: Louvre, 2012, 443 pages, ills., €45, ISBN 978-2-35031-370-2 Ten or twenty years ago, the idea that two major insights into individual works from the circle of exhibitions with drawings and several original Leonardo ’s pupils, and these findings are careful- paintings by Leonardo da Vinci could open within ly compiled and discussed in the catalogue. We just a few months of each other, would have been are unlikely to come face to face again with such considered impossible. But this is exactly what the an impressive number of first-rate and in most London National Gallery and the Paris Louvre re- cases well-restored paintings by artists such as cently managed to do. First came Leonardo da Ambrogio de Predis, Giovanni Antonio Boltraf- Vinci. Painter at the Court of Milan, which opened fio and Marco d’Oggiono. More problematic, on in November 2011 in London. The National the other hand, are some of the attributions, dat- Gallery ’s decision to host what proved to be the ings and interpretations proposed in the catalogue largest and most important exhibition of original and concerning the works by Leonardo himself. paintings by Leonardo for decades, may well have The exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at been triggered by the discovery of the underdraw- the Court of Milan focused upon the activities of ings beneath the London Virgin of the Rocks a few Leonardo and his workshop in Milan between c. years earlier.1 The cleaning of the altarpiece, com- 1483 and 1499. The theme of Leonardo as court pleted in 2010, was probably another influential painter nonetheless receives only partial treatment factor. The Paris exhibition La Sainte Anne. L’ulti- in the scholarly catalogue, not least since a number me chef-d ’oeuvre de Leonard de Vinci, which of the major works in the exhibition fell outside opened in March 2012 in the Louvre, likewise had the commissions that Leonardo is known to have one of its starting points in a restoration - in this carried out for the Sforza court. This partial treat- case, that of Leonardo ’s Virgin and Child with ment also extends to the possible levels of meaning SaintAnne. We may therefore assume that both ex- present within typical princely and political hibitions were also initiated against the backdrop iconography. The section on the equestrian monu- of the controversies that invariably arise when ment to Francesco Sforza, commissioned by Lu- prominent art works by famous artists are restored dovico Sforza as defacto ruler of Milan, is a case in and suddenly look quite different. point. The catalogue suggests that Leonardo The London exhibition was one of the best of might have based his design on the Horse Tamers the past few decades. The illuminating and in- on the Quirinal in Rome. Not only is this uncon- structive layout of the exhibition as a whole and vincing in visual terms alone, but it fails to take ac- the sophisticated display of the individual works count of the nature of the commission and the per- reflected the high standards we are used to from sonality of the patron. It would be more apt in this the National Gallery. The show offered notable context to cite the antique Dexileos motif, 2 which I would like to thank Karen Williams for her translation tional Gallery and »St Jerome« in the Vatican, in: The of this text. Burlington Magazine 147, 2005, 450-463. 1 Luke Syson/Rachel Billinge, Leonardo da Vinci’s Use of 2 Wendy J. Wegener, Mortuary Chapels of Renaissance Underdrawing in the »Virgin of the Rocks« in the Na- Condottieri, PhD thesis, Princeton 1989. Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte 76. Band/ 2013 417 Leonardo knew from ancient coins 3 and which similar can be found in portraits by Giovanni An- meshed perfectly with Ludovico Sforza ’s military tonio Boltraffio and Marco d’Oggiono. and political ambitions. The attribution of the Vatican’s St Jerome (Cat. Amongst the particular strengths of the Lon- no. 20), on the other hand, is wholly undisputed. don exhibition were its detailed analyses of works Alongside the Lady with an Ermine, it is one of originating from Leonardo ’s immediate sphere. Leonardo ’s most widely-exhibited paintings. By The portraits by Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio all appearances, Stjerome is relatively easy to and Marco d’Oggiono, for example, bear clear borrow and was perhaps included in the London witness to the advanced level of realism already show for this reason, even though it had no real achieved in Milanese painting. Equally apparent, business in an exhibition on this particular theme. however, is the distance separating the autograph In truth, there is no reliable ‘ evidence that St works by Leonardo and those of his colleagues: Jerome was painted by Leonardo at the court of while the portraits by these latter are often frozen Milan. St Jerome is traditionally - and in my view beneath a wealth of realistic - but static - detail, rightly - dated to the end of Leonardo ’s first Flor- those by Leonardo convey an entirely new sense entine period, in other words to between 1480 of movement. Cecilia Gallerani (Cat. no. io), also andi482, and not to the years that Leonardo first known as the Lady with an Ermine, is a typical spent in Milan between 1483 and 1499. example: her upper body is angled almost imper- The kneeling figure of St Jerome is widely con- ceptibly towards the left, away from the pictorial sidered to take up a compositional type that was plane, while her head is turned in the opposite di- developed and employed primarily in Florence. rection towards the right. A similar tension arises The church fa$ade visible in the right-hand back- out of the contrast between the unfinished areas ground likewise has a distinctly Florentine flavour. along the lower edge of the picture and the mas- The new dating of c. 1488-1490 proposed by Luke terly realism with which Leonardo has rendered Syson and others is certainly a possibility, but no Cecilia’s flesh and the ermine’s fur in the finest de- more convincing than the much earlier date tradi- tail. Here we gain a sense of what it was that set tionally assigned to the panel. More problematic, Leonardo apart from the artists in his sphere and however, is the fact that the dating of Leonardo ’s secured him a place in the history books. anthropometric studies (Cat. nos. 26-27) has been The London exhibition also allowed an illumi- brought forward in the London catalogue to the nating comparison between Cecilia Gallerani and period between 1487 and 1490, and in some cases the Portrait of a Musician from the Pinacoteca even earlier (Cat. nos. 23-24), in order to underpin Ambrosiana (Cat. no. 5). The Musician comes this later dating of St Jerome. In fact, however, nowhere close to the subtle dynamism of Cecilia Leonardo only began his systematic measurement Gallerani, but on the other hand shares features of the proportions of the human body in 1489, as with portraits by other Milanese artists. Its attri- documented by an entry in his notes for April of bution to Leonardo cannot be upheld by any that year. 5 His proportion drawings in all probabil- stretch of the imagination. Hard shading, distor- ity only arose after this date and hence are wholly tions in the neck region, and the parallel alignment unconnected with St Jerome. of the musician ’s head and torso contradict the dy- The new dating of the Buccleuch version of the namic understanding of portraiture familiar to us' Madonna of the Yarnwinder (Cat. no. 88) is also from Ginevra de ’ Benci and Cecilia Gallerani. In- difficult to accept. The presence of a Virgin and deed, the Musician ’s static pose goes directly Child composition of this type in Leonardo ’s against Leonardo ’s own advice on the composi- workshop is first documented by a letter from tion of figures. 4 Nor does the noticeably off- Pietro da Novellara to Isabella d’Este, dated 14 centre pupil of the Musician ’s left eye appear in April 1501.6 The two finest variants (one owned any other Leonardo painting, although something by the Duke of Buccleuch, the other in a New 418 Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte 76. Band / 2013 York private collection) have consequently tradi- traditionally been accepted as wholly the work of tionally been dated to the period between 1501 Leonardo, the London version has been viewed up and 1507 or even later. In the exhibition catalogue, till now as the product of a collaboration involving however, the Buccleuch version is captioned other artists - a conclusion based on the findings of »about 1499 onwards« - a date that would mean it earlier restoration campaigns and surviving docu- was begun in Milan. There is no convincing evi- ments. Luke Syson now considers that the London dence to substantiate this claim. The only aspect of Virgin of the Rocks is likewise fully autographic. the panel with room for discussion is the extent to The opportunity to compare the paintings directly which, as the catalogue argues, Leonardo was in- in the National Gallery, however, tended to con- volved in its execution. The extremely high-quali- firm the traditional conclusion that other hands ty execution of the Virgin’s flesh and areas of sfu- were involved in the execution of the second ver- mato suggest that the Buccleuch Madonna of the sion of Leonardo ’s original design.
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