Works by Leonardo da Vinci

Left Angel in Verrocchio’s The Baptism of Christ

(ca. 1475) is among the earliest works attributed to the Renaissance master. Leonardo was an apprentice in the workshop of the Florentine artist Andrea del Verrocchio, and was asked to add the angel to Verrocchio’s painting of _______, as it was common practice for students to complete less important sections of a teacher’s paintings. The contrast between the subtlety of color and minute detail in Leonardo’s angel, as compared to the other figures, is striking; scholars also speculate Leonardo painted much of the background, as it—like the angel—was done in oil rather than tempera. According to a fanciful (but almost certainly apocryphal) story from biographer Giorgio Vasari, after seeing Leonardo’s angel, Verrocchio snapped his paintbrushes in half and swore off painting for the rest of his life.

The Annunciation

(ca. 1475) is Leonardo’s earliest major complete canvas, and was completed—like his angel—while he was still a student in Verrocchio’s workshop. The painting, currently held in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, shows an open, outdoor courtyard in Tuscany, where on the right the Virgin Mary reads from an open book and raises her hand in greeting to the kneeling angel Gabriel on the left, who holds a lily and tells Mary that she will bear the Christ child. While still bearing characteristics of an early work, elements of the painting’s composition were revolutionary for their time, including the use of a single central vanishing point. Leonardo likely based the table on which the Virgin’s book rests on a tomb Verrocchio had sculpted for the Medici family. The angel Gabriel’s wings were initially quite small; they were later enlarged by an artist other than Leonardo.

The Portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci

(ca. late 1470s) is the only one of Leonardo’s works held in the United States; it is part of the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. _____was a notable Florentine noblewoman; the painting was likely commissioned to celebrate her engagement to Luigi di Bernardo Niccolini. At one point, the painting also showed ____arms and lower chest; however, the lower portion was at some point cut off, leaving the modern, nearly square version. The contrast between the portrait and the later Mona Lisa is striking; instead of smiling, _____looks out from the canvas with a dispassionate, flat expression, thought by many scholars to be a reference to her intelligence. ____sits in front of a juniper bush, a reference to both her virtue and her name.

The Virgin on the Rocks (or Madonna of the Rocks)

exists in two versions. The earlier of the two, painted in the 1480s likely entirely by Leonardo, is held in the Louvre; the second version, likely painted in the first decade of the 1500s, is held in London, and much debate exists on how much of it was completed by Leonardo’s assistants instead of the master. The painting gets its name from the rocky outcropping that comprises the background to a scene showing the ________Mary, the infants Jesus and John the Baptist, and an angel. While the major components and composition of the two paintings are the same, they differ in the specific colors used and in the angel’s pose and gaze. The work was originally commissioned as the central panel of an altarpiece in Milan’s Church of San Francesco Grande (demolished in the early 19th century).

Vitruvian Man

(ca. 1490) is an ink-on-paper drawing showing two superimposed nude male figures—one standing straight up and touching the edges of a square, the other with splayed legs and raised arms touching the edge of a circle (with the figure’s navel at the circle’s center). The work’s name indicates Leonardo’s source of inspiration in creating it: ______was an ancient Roman architect whose writings about using human proportions in his designs led Leonardo to investigate those proportions. Leonardo’s written comments about said proportions appear above and below the drawing (such as that the fingertip-to-fingertip distance between one’s outstretched hands is equal to one’s height). Other details in the drawing were included to examine other proportions, such as one foot of each figure being drawn straight on, with the other being turned to the side.

Lady with an Ermine

(ca. 1490) is a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani. Leonardo completed this painting during his time in Milan working for the Sforzas; Gallerani was one of Ludovico’s mistresses. The portrait shows Cecilia turning her head over her left shoulder while wearing a blue and red dress—colors also often used for the clothing of the Virgin Mary. In her arms, she cradles an ermine or stoat, a white weasel depicted larger than the actual real-life animal, and likely symbolizing Cecilia’s purity or chastity. At some point in the 1700s, the painting’s original background was covered with a flat black layer, and the name “Leonardo d’Awinci” and title “La Belle Ferronnière” added to the painting’s upper left corner—leading to much confusion with Leonardo’s actual other painting known as La Belle Ferronnière, thought to depict another of Ludovico’s mistresses.

The Last Supper

(ca. 1498) is a mural painted on the refectory (or dining room) wall in Milan’s Santa Maria della Grazie, a Dominican convent. Because Leonardo painted the work using tempera directly onto a completed wall with a simple undercoat—as opposed to painting it as a fresco on wet plaster—the painting almost immediately began to decay; it has been restored several times throughout its life, to the point where very little, if any, of Leonardo’s original work remains. The composition of the painting has been the subject of much analysis: Christ’s announcement of his imminent betrayal has caused his apostles to fearfully confer in four groups of three, completely contrasting with Christ’s calm demeanor. Judas is portrayed with his head lower than anyone else’s, spilling over the salt, indicating he is the traitor. _______-has inspired many conspiracy theories, including that the apostle John is actually meant to be Mary Magdalene, and that the position of everyone’s hands forms a musical composition.

The Mona Lisa

(ca. 1503–1517) is not only Leonardo’s most recognizable painting, it is arguably the single most famous piece of art in the world. ____, also known as La Gioconda, is thought to depict ____, the wife of silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. Leonardo never gave the painting to the Giocondo family; he carried it with him wherever he went, and continued sporadically working on it until just before his death. The work is renowned for its subject’s enigmatic smile, and seems to be looking directly at the viewer no matter where they are positioned. In 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia stole the painting from the Louvre—a task made more difficult by Leonardo having painted the work on a wood panel, rather than canvas—and hid it for two years, claiming he wished to return the painting to Italy. The has inspired numerous works of both tribute and parody; Marcel Duchamp’s work L.H.O.O.Q. consists of a postcard of the with facial hair added.

Saint John the Baptist

(ca. 1515–1517) is likely Leonardo’s last completed work; he finished it just a few years before his death in 1519. The work shows ______tilting his head and smiling secretively at the viewer, clutching furs and a cross to his chest while curling his right arm to point upward. The model for ______ was Salaì, Leonardo’s pupil and longtime companion. Many modern scholars have theorized that Leonardo and Salaì were lovers, and that the intimate nature of the painting represents their relationship. Leonardo’s portrait of _____is among the best examples of his signature use of sfumato (from the Italian word for “smoke”), a technique of blending colors to create a soft and smooth transition between them.

The Great Horse for Ludovico Sforza

(worked on during the 1480s–1490s), also known as Leonardo’s Horse or the ___, was a planned but never completed massive statue. In 1481 Leonardo left Florence for Milan, where he was employed by Duke Ludovico _____; among the duke’s earliest commissions for Leonardo was for a 25-foot-tall statue of a horse intended as a monument to the duke’s father. Leonardo spent over a decade planning the work, including designing new processes to cast it, as a bronze work of that size had never before been attempted. In 1493 Leonardo completed a full-size clay model of the sculpture; however, an invasion by French king Charles VIII halted work on the actual statue, and Leonardo’s clay model was eventually destroyed. In the late 20th century, sculptor Nina Akamu created a design based on Leonardo’s work that was cast and finally unveiled in 1999.