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1500-1508
The return to Florence
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The sacred and the secular
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During the four years of his second stay in Florence, Leonardo
went through a period of extraordinary artistic productivity,
creating no less than a dozen works brought to varying stages of
completion. In addition, he carried on his studies of anatomy,
arithmetic, geometry, and military engineering, and took on various
military and civilian duties, one of which was a project to divert
the Arno River near Pisa. Between 1500 and 1508 Leonardo worked on
the Cartoon for the StAnne, Battle of Anghiari, Leda and the
Swan, Madonna with the Yarn-Winder, Hercules and the Nemean Lion,
Mary Magdalen, Neptune with the Sea Horses, the Salvator Mundi, the
Angel of the Annunciation, and the Madonna and Child with the Young
St John. Only drawings survive of the two mythological subjects,
Neptune and Hercules; and all that remain of the
Madonna with the Yarn-Winder, commissioned by Florimond Robertet,
secretary of the French king, and of the Salvator Mundi, are
the versions by pupils.
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After Leonardo, Madonna with the Yarn-Winder, c.1501,
Private Collection, New York.
This painting derives its iconography from the
apocryphal Gospels in which it is related that the Virgin
spun the purple cloth destined for the temple.
Seated in a landscape of mountains and streams, Mary,
showing both concern and acquiescence, supports the Child,
who leans against the spindle basket and holds fast the
yarn-winder that has assumed the form of a cross. There is a
complex symbolic and psychological interaction between the
figures of the Virgin and the Child.
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Leonardo da Vinci, Neptune with the Sea Horses,
1500-08, Royal Library, Windsor.
This drawing was a preliminary study for the Neptune
commissioned by Antonio Segni, a client of Botticelli.
The violence of the scene is reminiscent of the work
done for the Battle of Anghiari.
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Marco d'Oggiono, Salvator Mundi, after 1494, Galleria
Borghese, Rome.
A copy of Leonardo's version, this painting was donated by Pope Paul V
to Cardinal Scipione Borghese as the work of Leonardo.
There is debate as to whether the subject was painted for the French
king or to celebrate the expulsion of the Medici from Florence,
which occurred on the day of San Salvatore, 1494. |
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After Leonardo, Madonna with the Yarn-Winder, c.1501,
Drumlaring Castle, Edinburgh.
Here, too, criticism fluctuates between a secular and supernatural
reading.
In his mature years Leonardo addressed the theme of play, here in a
context of spinning
and weaving, archetypal images of the Passion. Once again the
gestures imply a complex
chain of actions and reactions, with deep spiritual overtones.
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Leonardo da Vinci
Grotesque head
1500-05
Black chalk on paper
Christ Church, Oxford
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Leonardo da Vinci
Head of a Man
1503-05
Red chalk on paper
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
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Leonardo da Vinci
Profile of an old man
Pen and ink on paper
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
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Leonardo da Vinci
Star of Bethlehem and other plants
1505-07
Pen and ink over red chalk on paper
Royal Library, Windsor
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