Leonardo da Vinci: Master Draftsman. — New York, 2003

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sponsor's Statement ... vi

Director's Foreword ... vii

Acknowledgments ... ix

Lenders to the Exhibition ... xii

Contributors to the Catalogue ... xiii

Note to the Reader ... xiv

 

INTRODUCTION TO LEONARDO AND HIS DRAWINGS ... 3

Carmen C. Bambach

 

LEONARDO, LEFT-HANDED DRAFTSMAN AND WRITER ... 31

Carmen C. Bambach

 

WORD AND IMAGE IN LEONARDO'S WRITINGS ... 59

Carlo Vecce

 

THE CRITICAL FORTUNE OF LEONARDO'S DRAWINGS ... 79

Carlo Pedretti

 

THE EARLY DRAPERY STUDIES ... 111

Françoise Viatte

 

NEW LIGHT ON LEONARDO'S FLORENTINE PATRONS ... 121

Alessandro Cecchi

 

DRAWING THE BOUNDARIES ... 141

Martin Kemp

 

LEONARDO'S DRAWINGS IN MILAN AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE GRAPHIC WORK OF MILANESE ARTISTS ... 155

Pietro C. Marani

 

THE CODEX LEICESTER ... 191

Claire Farago

 

LEONARDO'S GROTESQUES: ORIGINALS AND COPIES ... 203

Varena Forcione

 

DOCUMENTED CHRONOLOGY OF LEONARDO'S LIFE AND WORK ... 227

Carmen C. Bambach

 

ENTRIES ... 242

 

Bibliography ... 723

Index ... 768

Photograph Credits ... 786

 

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Few geniuses have come close to equaling the towering presence of Leonardo da Vinci; few have captured the imagination of so wide a public over so many centuries. The present exhibition includes one of the largest groups of original drawings by Leonardo ever assembled for a public display, as well as the invaluable loan of his unfinished painting Saint Jerome Praying in the Wilderness. Selected from public and private collections in Europe and the United States, this survey presents the great master's multifaceted career as artist, author, scientist, inventor, theorist, and teacher through his drawings, which, along with his myriad notebook pages, provide a most intimate insight into his monumental legacy. A substantial group of drawings by his teacher Andrea del Verrocchio, by some of his early Florentine colleagues, and by his Lombard pupils and most distinguished followers places Leonardo in a cultural and historical context.

 

The exhibition focuses on the hand of Leonardo, master draftsman, at work, highlighting the techniques and functions of his drawings (aspects not fully explored in the vast scholarly literature on the artist). To envision Leonardo quill pen in hand—sketching, brainstorming, reworking, discarding, recommencing, jumping from thought to analogous thought on the page—is to succumb entirely to the sorcery of a creative process of the highest order.

 

Forty years ago, for a month in the winter of 1963, The Metropolitan Museum of Art had the privilege of displaying in its Medieval Hall Leonardo's Mona Lisa, which was on loan from the Musée du Louvre. In 1981 and 1984 the Metropolitan Museum was also the fortunate venue for two beautiful thematic exhibitions offering selections of Leonardo's drawings of plants and anatomy from the magnificent holdings in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. Happily, these two institutions have once again agreed to part with a significant number of their treasures for the Metropolitan's latest Leonardo undertaking. We are most grateful to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who graciously consented to lend a core of thirty-one drawings by Leonardo. We very much appreciate the early support and advice of Lady Jane Roberts, Chief Librarian and Keeper of the Print Room and the Royal Library, Windsor Castle. We are similarly indebted to Henri Loyrette, Director of the Musée du Louvre, for the unprecedented loan of twenty-nine drawings by Leonardo and his circle, and to Pierre Rosenberg, Président-Directeur de l'Académie Française du Musee du Louvre, for his immediate support of this initiative. We greatly benefited from the learned counsel of Françoise Viatte, Conservateur Général Chargé du Département des Arts Graphiques of the Musée du Louvre, whose own exhibition, "Léonardo de Vinci, dessins et manuscrits," will open at the Musée du Louvre in May 2003. We wish to thank also our colleagues at the Réunion des Musées Nationaux for their assistance.

 

It is appropriate for me to express our immense gratitude to Professor Giuliano Urbani, the cultural minister of Italy, for his support in securing twenty masterpieces by Leonardo and his circle from Italian institutions. Here, I would also like to acknowledge the generosity of Francesco Buranelli, Director of the Musei Vaticani, for the exceptional loan of Leonardo's monumental Saint Jerome. Special thanks are also due to Giovanna Nepi Scirè, Soprintendente of the Patrimonio Storico Artistico Demoetnoantropologico di Venezia, for lending nearly the entire corpus of drawings by Leonardo from the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, of which institution she is also director. Neil MacGregor, Director of The British Museum, generously lent nine critical drawings, and Antony Griffiths, Keeper of the Department of Drawings and Prints, The British Museum, provided encouragement from the outset of this endeavor.

 

Leonardo's drawings are among the most prized of Renaissance works, and this assemblage is the result of nearly five years of complex negotiations. I extend my deepest gratitude to the private collectors, as well as the directors and staffs of the following institutions for their superlative cooperation in lending what amount to be the most precious works of art entrusted to their care: Bill and Melinda Gates; the Duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth; the Woodner Family; the private collector who wished to remain anonymous; as well as the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin; Szépmüvészeti Muzeum, Budapest; The Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Wallraf-Richartz-Museum—Foundation Corboud, Graphische Sammlung, Cologne; National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Biblioteca Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan; The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Faculdade de Belas Artes, Universidade do Porto, Oporto; Visitors of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Christ Church, Oxford; École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris; Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Biblioteca Reale, Turin; Monumenti Musei e Gallerie Pontificie, Vatican City; Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice; Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

 

The exhibition and accompanying catalogue were conceived by Carmen C. Bambach, Curator of Drawings and Prints; she served as the catalogue editor and wrote a number of its major texts. In offering new research and in summarizing the enormous, dauntingly complex Leonardo literature, the catalogue is directed toward both a general and a scholarly audience. We are most grateful to the distinguished experts on Leonardo's work who have contributed to this publication: Alessandro Cecchi, Claire Farago, Varena Forcione, Martin Kemp, Anne-Marie Logan, Pietro C. Marani, Carlo Pedretti, Carlo Vecce, Frangoise Viatte, and Linda Wolk-Simon.

 

The Museum is most grateful to Morgan Stanley for its outstanding support of the exhibition. We are also indebted to the National Endowment for the Arts for its important contribution to the project. In addition, we would like to acknowledge the kind assistance provided by the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. We would also like to recognize the generosity of The Drue E. Heinz Fund for its support of the exhibition catalogue.

 

 

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