that it was Leonardo's usual practice to do two representations of every subject he portrayed, either in drawing, in cartoon, or in painting. In his own handwriting, as early as October, 1478, he records: 'I commenced the two of the Virgin Mary.'[1]
We have extant to-day—all unquestioned as to authenticity—the two drawings of Isabella d'Este; two drawings of the Adoration of the Magi, and one cartoon; and Müntz admits that Leonardo 'may have treated the same subject twice';[2] two paintings of the Madonna del Rocce. We know he did two cartoons of the St. Anne, one of which, though differing in detail, now hangs in the Royal Academy.
He commenced two versions of St. John the Baptist (see p. 38, Note 1); and we are told he did two versions[3] of Leda and the Swan, and Herr Muller-Walde emphatically states that he painted one version of the picture in Florence between 1501 and 1506, and a second at Fontainebleau between 1516 and 1519;[4] while M. Rosenberg[5] voices the statement that he made two models of the Sforza Monument. It was almost a principle of Da Vinci's to do two versions of every subject. He even wrote two drafts of some of his letters. Many great authorities hold that he painted the two pictures of the Annunciation, the small one in the Louvre (admitted by all) and the larger one in the Uffizi in Florence.[6]
In view of these facts, is it not as good as certain that Leonardo started painting two versions of the Mona Lisa, more especially as one of his earliest biographers tells us he liked painting it more than any other picture?[7] There is another reason, moreover, why Leonardo should have painted two versions of Madonna Lisa, namely that he painted her direct on to the canvas. We have not a trace of a single drawing or study by him for the picture, while we have the positive statement of Vasari that ' he always employed, while he was painting her portrait, persons to play or sing and jesters, who might make her remain merry.' We know the amount of trouble he invariably took in order to get perfection, so it would
10
- ↑ 'Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci,' by J. P. Richter (vol. 1, p. 342).
- ↑ 'Leonardo da Vinci,' by Eugene Müntz (vol. 1, p. 62).
- ↑ 'Leonardo da Vinci,' Monograph by M. Adolf Rosenberg (p. 138).
- ↑ Müntz (vol. 2, p. 166).
- ↑ Rosenberg's Monograph (p. 49).
- ↑ The following maintain that he painted the Uffizi Annunciation: Dr. Bode, Bayersdorfer, Mjjller-Walde, Schmarzou, Makorosky, Friedlander, Sidney Colvin, Geymüller, and Gabriel Séailles. Against this are: Frizzoni, Rosenberg, Morelli, Berenson, and Thiis; the latter three, however, are the most eminent authorities on Leonardo.
- ↑ 'Mais le tableau qu'il peignit avec plus de soin et d'amour, fut le portrait de Lise, appellee communement La Joconde du nom de François son epoux.' Traité de la Peinture, M. de Piles, Paris, 1716.
