Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on his achievements as a painter, he has also become known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and palaeontology. Leonardo is widely regarded as a genius who epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal, and his collective works contributed to the development of European art to an extent rivalled only by that of his younger contemporary Michelangelo.
Paintings by Leonardo da Vinci
Mona Lisa (1503)
The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, [and] the most parodied work of art in the world." The painting's novel qualities include the subject's enigmatic expression, the monumentality of the composition, the subtle modelling of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism.
The painting has been traditionally considered to depict the Italian noblewoman Lisa del Giocondo. It is painted in oil on a white poplar panel. Leonardo never gave the painting to the Giocondo family. It was believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506; however, Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. King Francis I of France acquired the Mona Lisa after Leonardo's death in 1519, and it became the property of the French Republic. It has normally been on display at the Louvre in Paris since 1797.
The Last Supper (Leonardo) (1490)
The Last Supper (Italian: Il Cenacolo [il tʃeˈnaːkolo] or L'Ultima Cena [ˈlultima ˈtʃeːna]) is a mural painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1495–1498, housed in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. The painting represents the scene of the Last Supper of Jesus with the Twelve Apostles, as it is told in the Gospel of John – specifically the moment after Jesus announces that one of his apostles will betray him. Its handling of space, mastery of perspective, treatment of motion and complex display of human emotion has made it one of the Western world's most recognizable paintings and among Leonardo's most celebrated works. Some commentators consider it pivotal in inaugurating the transition into what is now termed the High Renaissance.
The work was commissioned as part of a plan of renovations to the church and its convent buildings by Leonardo's patron Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. In order to permit his inconsistent painting schedule and frequent revisions, it is painted with materials that allowed for regular alterations: tempera on gesso, pitch, and mastic. Due to the methods used, a variety of environmental factors, and intentional damage, little of the original painting remains today despite numerous restoration attempts, the last being completed in 1999. The Last Supper is Leonardo's largest work, aside from the Sala delle Asse.
Lady with an Ermine (1490)
The Lady with an Ermine is a portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. Dated to c. 1489–1491, the work is painted in oils on a panel of walnut wood. Its subject is Cecilia Gallerani, a mistress of Ludovico Sforza ("Il Moro"), Duke of Milan; Leonardo was painter to the Sforza court in Milan at the time of its execution. It is the second of only four surviving portraits of women painted by Leonardo, the others being Ginevra de' Benci, La Belle Ferronnière and the Mona Lisa.
Lady with an Ermine is now in the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków, and is considered one of Poland's national treasures.
Salvator Mundi (painting) (1500)
Salvator Mundi (Latin for 'Savior of the World') is a painting attributed in whole or part to the Italian High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated c. 1499–1510. Long thought to be a copy of a lost original veiled with overpainting, it was rediscovered, restored, and included in an exhibition of Leonardo's work at the National Gallery, London, in 2011–2012. Christie's, which sold the work in 2017, stated that most leading scholars consider it an original work by Leonardo, but this attribution has been disputed by some leading specialists who propose that he only contributed certain elements; others believe that the extensive restoration prevents a definitive attribution.
The painting depicts Jesus Christ in anachronistic blue Renaissance attire, making a gesture of blessing with his right hand, while holding a transparent, non-refracting crystal orb in his left, signalling his role as Salvator Mundi and representing the celestial sphere of the heavens. Approximately thirty copies and variations of the work by pupils and followers of Leonardo have been identified; two are considered to have been produced during Leonardo's lifetime. Two preparatory chalk and ink drawings of the drapery by Leonardo are held in the British Royal Collection.
Ginevra de' Benci (1476)
Ginevra de' Benci is a portrait painting by Leonardo da Vinci of the 15th-century Florentine aristocrat Ginevra de' Benci (born c. 1458). It was acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. US from Franz Joseph II, Prince of Liechtenstein in February 1967 for a record price for a painting of between $5 and $6 million. It is the only painting by Leonardo on public view in the Americas.
Ginevra de' Benci, a well-known young Florentine woman, is universally considered to be the portrait's sitter. Leonardo painted the portrait in Florence between 1474 and 1478, possibly to commemorate Ginevra's marriage to Luigi di Bernardo Niccolini at the age of 16. More likely, it commemorates the engagement. Commonly, contemporary portraits of females were commissioned for either of two occasions: betrothal or marriage. Wedding portraits traditionally were created in pairs, with the woman on the right, facing left; since this portrait faces right, it more likely represents betrothal.
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (Leonardo) (1511)
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (Italian: Sant'Anna, la Vergine e il Bambino con l'agnellino) is an unfinished oil painting by High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1501–1519. It depicts Saint Anne, her daughter the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. Christ is shown grasping a sacrificial lamb symbolizing his Passion. The painting was commissioned as the high altarpiece for the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence and its theme had long preoccupied Leonardo.
It is likely that the painting was commissioned by King Louis XII of France following the birth of his daughter in 1499, but never delivered to him. Leonardo probed into incorporating these figures together by drawing the Burlington House Cartoon (National Gallery). In 2008, a curator at the Louvre discovered several faint sketches believed to have been made by Leonardo on the back of the painting. Infrared reflectography was used to reveal a "7–by–4 inch drawing of a horse's head", which had a resemblance to sketches of horses that Leonardo had made previously before drawing The Battle of Anghiari. Also revealed was a second sketch 61⁄2 inch–by–4 inch depiction of half a skull. A third sketch showed the infant Jesus playing with a lamb, which sketch was similar to that which is painted on the front side. The Louvre spokesperson said that the sketches were "very probably" made by Leonardo and that it was the first time that any drawing had been found on the "flip side of one of his works". The drawings will be further studied by a group of experts as the painting undergoes restoration.
Benois Madonna (1480)
The Benois Madonna, otherwise known as the Madonna and Child with Flowers, is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. One of two Madonnas begun by Leonardo in October 1478, it was completed c. 1478–1480; the other was the Madonna of the Carnation, now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
It is likely that the Benois Madonna was the first work painted by Leonardo independently from his master Andrea del Verrocchio. Two of Leonardo's preliminary sketches for this work are in the British Museum, although the painting was probably overpainted by other hands. The preliminary sketches and the painting itself suggest that Leonardo was concentrating on the idea of sight and perspective. The child is thought to be guiding his mother's hands for the flower to get into his central vision.
La Belle Ferronnière (1495)
La Belle Ferronnière (French pronunciation: [la bɛl fɛʁɔnjɛʁ]) is a portrait painting of a lady, by Leonardo da Vinci, in the Louvre. It is also known as Portrait of an Unknown Woman. The painting's title, applied as early as the seventeenth century, identifying the sitter as the wife or daughter of an ironmonger (a ferronnier), was said to be discreetly alluding to a reputed mistress of Francis I of France, married to a certain Le Ferron. Later she was tentatively identified as Lucretia Crivelli, a married lady-in-waiting to Duchess Beatrice of Milan, who became another of the Duke's mistresses.
Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine has also been known by this name. This was once believed to be a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, one of the mistresses of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. The narrative and the title were applied to Lady with an Ermine when it was in Princess Izabela Czartoryska's collection, and became confused with La Belle Ferronnière by the presence of a ferronnière, a type of accessory worn across the forehead, in the painting as well.
Saint John the Baptist (Leonardo) (1514)
Saint John the Baptist is a High Renaissance oil painting on walnut wood by Leonardo da Vinci. Likely to have been completed between 1513 and 1516, it is believed to be his final painting. Its original size was 69 by 57 centimetres (27 in × 22 in).
The painting is in the permanent collection of the Louvre. In November 2022, it was loaned to Louvre Abu Dhabi for two years as part of the museum's fifth anniversary.
Adoration of the Magi (Leonardo) (1482)
The Adoration of the Magi is an unfinished early painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo was given the commission by the Augustinian monks of San Donato in Scopeto in Florence in 1481, but he departed for Milan the following year, leaving merely more than the preparatory underdrawing in charcoal, ink and watercolor. It has been in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence since 1670.
The Virgin Mary and Child are depicted in the foreground and form a triangular shape with the Magi kneeling in adoration. Behind them is a semicircle of accompanying figures, including what may be a self-portrait of the young Leonardo (on the far right). In the background on the left is the ruin of a pagan building, on which workmen can be seen, apparently repairing it. On the right are men on horseback fighting and a sketch of a rocky landscape.
Madonna Litta (1490)
The Madonna Litta is a late 15th-century painting, by Leonardo da Vinci, in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. It depicts the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the Christ child, a devotional subject known as the Madonna lactans. The figures are set in a dark interior with two arched openings, as in Leonardo's earlier Madonna of the Carnation, and a mountainous landscape in aerial perspective can be seen beyond. In his left hand Christ holds a goldfinch, which is symbolic of his future Passion.
Scholarly opinion is divided on the work's attribution, with some believing it to be the work of a pupil of Leonardo such as Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio or Marco d'Oggiono; the Hermitage Museum, however, considers the painting to be an autograph work by Leonardo. The painting takes its name from the House of Litta, a Milanese noble family in whose collection it was for much of the nineteenth century.
Annunciation (Leonardo) (1472)
The Annunciation is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1472–1476. Leonardo's earliest extant major work, it was completed in Florence while he was an apprentice in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio. The painting was made using oil and tempera on a large poplar panel and depicts the Annunciation, a popular biblical subject in 15th-century Florence. Since 1867 it has been housed in the Uffizi in Florence, the city where it was created. Though the work has been criticized for inaccuracies in its composition, it is among the best-known portrayals of the Annunciation in Christian art.
The subject matter of the work is drawn from Luke 1.26–39. It depicts the angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she would conceive miraculously and give birth to a son to be named Jesus and called "the Son of God", whose reign would never end. The subject of the annunciation was very popular for contemporaneous artworks painted in Christian countries such as Italy and had been depicted many times in Florentine art, including several examples by the Early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico. Details of the commission for the painting and its early history remain obscure. Since the painting was brought to the Uffizi from the Olivetan monastery San Bartolomeo, scholars have suggested that it might have been the monastery's monks who commissioned the artwork for their sacristy after the church's renovation in 1472.