in 1479, besides numerous others attributed to earlier and later dates, mostly now in public collections.
Of his lost pictures, all are accounted for after leaving his possession, even to his very earliest efforts. The Cartoon of Adam and Eve, drawn for the King of Portugal's tapestry, Vasari saw 'in the happy house of the glorious Octaviano de' Medici.' The Monster on the Shield he painted when a boy. It was sold to Ludovico Moro, Duke of Milan, according to Vasari, who also saw the Medusa in the collection of Duke Cosimo de' Medici, in whose inventory it was mentioned. The Madonna with Flowers was in the possession of Pope Clement VII. The Neptune was also seen by Vasari, and it then belonged to Messer Giovanni Gaddis. The Birth of Christ was delivered to the Emperor Maximilian I as a present from the Duke of Milan, and the master's 'anonymous biographer' describes it as one of the most beautiful things ever painted. The portraits of Lucrecia Crivelli and Cecilia Gallerani were in Milan as late as the eighteenth century.[1] The Madonna with the Spindles was seen and admired by Louis XII, as already recorded, and was at Pavia. The portrait of a child of Baldassare Turini and a Madonna painted in Rome were in that city long after the master left it, and were seen by Vasari in the house of one of Turini's descendants.[2] The Leda and the Swan and the Pomona were described by Lomazzo in detail, and he says they were at Fontainebleau, the property of Francis I.[3] The Leda was copied by Raphael in Florence between 1505-1506.[4]
Again, amongst his existing pictures, we have some of his earliest works. The Annunciation, painted in 1470,[5] when Leonardo was but eighteen years old, is now in the Louvre. His Cartoon and a study for the Adoration of the Magi, 1479-1481, are in the Uffizi,[6] and another study for the same subject is in Paris. The St. Jerome, of about the same date, 1480, is in the Vatican. The Vièrge aux Rochers, 1483, which Raphael and Perugino copied in Florence
43
- ↑ 'Leonardo,' by J. P. Richter (p. 43).
- ↑ Rosenberg (p. 140).
- ↑ 'Idea del Tempis della Pittura,' by Lomazzo, 1590 (pp. 6, 7).
- ↑ Müntz (vol. 2, p. 167).
- ↑ Thiis (p. 104). Rosenberg (p. 29).
- ↑ Of this Richardson makes the following note in his itinerary (p. 63): 'A fine Adoration of the Magi, unfinished. At a distance horses and horsemen; these my father has the studies of in several drawings (small ones), and one large one of a horse's skull, which is here just as in the drawing, only in oil, as this picture is printed. Probably this was a whim of Leonardo's, which he intended to clothe with flesh and skin; but a bare skull could have no meaning in his place.'
