Leonardo: The Drawing Gallery Series

The drawn work of Leonardo da Vinci and his pupils is concentrated in a few major collections, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana of Milan, and the Windsor Castle Royal Library being the main ones. The Louvre holdings are modest in number - twenty-two originals - but top-ranking in quality and allow one to follow practically every stage of the painter's career. It was purchased in the nineteenth century by a Milanese collector Giuseppe Vallardi, and has expanded with recent donations and acquisitions. This ensemble is connected with all Leonardo's major achievements, including works of his very earliest Florentine period, and some of his later paintings, like the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne of the Musee du Louvre. Part of the text relates to the study of drapery, another to the portrait, and by extension, the morphology of the face; a field in which his pupils were soon to excel. The volume includes several drawings of Leonardo's pupils, held in the Louvre.