The Virgin of the Rocks (), sometimes the Madonna of the Rocks, is the name of two paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, of the same subject, with a composition which is identical except for several significant details. The version generally considered the prime version, the earlier of the two, is unrestored and hangs in the Louvre in Paris. The other, which was restored between 2008 and 2010, hangs in the National Gallery, London. The works are often known as the Louvre Virgin of the Rocks and London Virgin of the Rocks respectively. The paintings are both nearly 2 metres (over 6 feet) high and are painted in oils. Both were originally painted on wooden panels, but the Louvre version has been transferred to canvas. It is about 8 cm (3 in) taller than the London version. The first certain record of this picture dates from 1625, when it was in the French royal collection. It is generally accepted that this painting was produced to fulfill a commission of 1483 in Milan. It is hypothesised that this painting was privately sold by Leonardo and that the London version was painted at a later date to fill the commission. Parts of the painting, the flowers in particular, indicate the collaboration and have led to speculation that the work is entirely by other hands, possibly Leonardo's assistant Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis and perhaps Evangelista.

It was painted for the chapel of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, in the church of San Francesco Maggiore in Milan. It was sold by the church, very likely in 1781, and certainly by 1785, when it was bought by Gavin Hamilton, who took it to England. After passing through various collections, it was bought by the National Gallery in 1880. The contract was not explicit about what each artist was to do. Leonardo was referred to in the contract as "Master". Ambrogio de Predis was also a painter.

The due date of installation was December 8, 1483, the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception, giving seven months for its completion. In 1576, the altarpiece was removed from the chapel, which was demolished. Hamilton's heirs sold the painting to Lord Lansdowne, and the painting was purchased by the 15th Earl of Suffolk. In 1880, the painting was sold by the 18th Earl of Suffolk to the National Gallery for 9,000 guineas. It was reported at that time to be in a poor state and was attributed by some critics to Leonardo and by others to Bernardino Luini. Some researchers believe that the artist's original intention was to paint an adoration of the infant Jesus. In 2021, Oxia Palus–an artificial intelligence company specialised in the reconstruction of lost artwork–used machine learning techniques to reconstruct this pentimento using the entire oeuvre of Leonardeschi paintings. Many other pentimenti are visible under x-ray or infra-red examination. returning to display in July 2010. The National Gallery, in a preliminary announcement of the results of the work, said that it revealed that the painting was largely, possibly entirely, by Leonardo, and unfinished in parts. The full publication of the findings was released later in 2010.

Louvre painting

In 1625 the Virgin of the Rocks now in the Louvre was seen at Fontainebleau by Cassiano dal Pozzo. In 1806, the French restorer Fr Hacquin transferred the Louvre Virgin of the Rocks from its panel onto canvas.

Side panels

The two panels from the completed altarpiece containing figures of angels playing musical instruments were acquired by the National Gallery, London in 1898.

Subject

thumb|Detail of [[Christ Child and angel, Louvre]]

thumb|Female head study by Leonardo for the Madonna of the Rocks, [[Royal Library of Turin]]

The subject of the two paintings is the adoration of the Christ child by the infant John the Baptist. This subject relates to a non-Biblical event which became part of the medieval tradition of the Holy Family’s journey into Egypt. The Gospel of Matthew relates that Joseph, the husband of Mary, was warned in a dream that King Herod would attempt to kill the child Jesus, and that he was to take the child and his mother and flee to safety. There are a series of non-Biblical narratives that relate to the journey to Egypt. One of these concerns Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, whose family, like that of Jesus, resided in the town of Bethlehem where the Massacre of the Innocents was to take place. According to legend, John was escorted to Egypt by the Archangel Uriel, and met the holy family on the road. The Louvre website refers to the angel in the painting as "Gabriel" (but the description of the painting in the Louvre still refers to Uriel). This accords with the Apocryphal gospel of John the Baptist, which describes his removal from Bethlehem as by Gabriel rather than Uriel and does not mention the meeting on the road to Egypt.

The subject of the Virgin Mary with the Christ child being adored by John the Baptist was common in the art of Renaissance Florence. John the Baptist is the patron saint of Florence and has often been depicted in the art of that city. Those who painted and sculpted the subject of the Mary and child with St John include Fra Filippo Lippi, Raphael, and Michelangelo.

In both paintings the scene is depicted taking place against a background of rock formations. While scenes of the Nativity were sometimes depicted as taking place in a cave, and Kenneth Clark points to the existence of an earlier rocky landscape in an adoration painted for the Medici family by Fra Filippo Lippi, the setting was unprecedented The main compositional difference between the two paintings is that while in the London painting the angel's right hand rests on his/her knee, in the Louvre painting the hand is raised, the index finger pointing at John. The eyes of the angel are turned down in a contemplative manner in the London painting, but in the Louvre picture are turned to gaze in the general direction of the viewer.

In the London painting, all the forms are more defined, including the bodily forms of the clothed figures. The Louvre painting remains much as it was in 1939 when Kenneth Clark lamented that "We can form no real conception of the colour, the values, or the general tone of the original, buried as it is under layer upon layer of thick yellow varnish. In the darks some mixture of bitumen has made the surface cake and crack like mud, and there are innumerable patches of old repaint all over the picture. All this must be borne in mind before we say that at this date Leonardo was a dark painter and an uninteresting colourist."

thumb|Detail of green angel

Another difference is in the colouring of the robes, particularly those of the angel. The London painting contains no red, while in the Louvre painting, the angel is robed in bright red and green, with the robes arranged differently from those of the angel in London.

Angel musicians

The two paintings of angels that are associated with the Virgin of the Rocks and are in the National Gallery do not properly fulfil the original commission for two panels each showing four angels, singing on one side and playing musical instruments on the other. There are only two musicians, both turned the same direction and both playing musical instruments. One, in green, plays a vielle, and the other, in red, plays a lute. The positions of the feet and the drapery are similar, indicating that the same design has in part been utilised for both. The angel in red is thought to be the work of Ambrogio de Predis. The angel in green is the work of an unknown associate of Leonardo. The National Gallery suggests that it might be the work of Francesco Napoletano. Matters of debate include the dates of the two paintings, their authorship and the nature of their symbolism. For a few months in 2011 and 2012 the two paintings were brought together, possibly for the first time, in the same room in an exhibition at the National Gallery.

Some writers, including Martin Davies, feel that 1483 is too late a date for the Louvre version, and suggest that the painting had already been begun and perhaps completed in Florence before the commission. Wasserman, Ottino della Chiesa and others have pointed out that the measurements of both paintings are compatible with the altarpiece, and that it is an unlikely coincidence that Leonardo painted a picture that fitted the dimensions, at a time prior to the commission. Davies suggests that Leonardo painted the second version in the 1480s to fulfil the commission, and based it on the earlier work.

The theory that is most commonly used to explain the existence of the two paintings is that Leonardo painted the Louvre Virgin of the Rocks to fulfil the commission, giving it a date of 1483, and that he then sold it to another client, and painted the London version as a replacement. In line with this theory, it is hypothesised that the Louvre painting was sold in the late 1480s, after some haggling over the final payment. The London painting was commenced in perhaps 1486 as a substitution for the "original" Louvre version, and was not ready for installation until 1508, after prolonged disagreement and negotiation. This explanation, which della Chiesa attributes to Venturi and Poggi, has gained wide acceptance, and is the version of events described on both the National Gallery and the Louvre websites. Martin Kemp dates the Louvre painting to 1483–1490 and the London painting to 1495–1508.

Not all authors agree with either the dating or the theory that the Louvre painting was the earlier, was sold, and the London painting done as a substitute. Taylor asserts that the London painting is stylistically the earlier of the two, being more meticulous, in keeping with the product of Leonardo's Florentine training, while the Louvre painting has more in common with the Last Supper and the Virgin and Child with St Anne, including the delicate use of sfumato. Taylor argues that the London painting fulfils the requirements of the commission of 1483 in terms of iconography, and that the iconography of the Louvre painting indicates that it was painted for an entirely different clientele, and gives it a date in the 1490s.

Authorship

thumb|right|[[Bernardino Luini, The Holy Family with St. John. Museo del Prado, Madrid]]

It has always been agreed that the Louvre Virgin of the Rocks is entirely by the hand of Leonardo da Vinci. The Virgin of the Rocks in London has generally been seen as having been designed by Leonardo and executed with the assistants.

Since the recent cleaning, National Gallery curator Luke Syson has stated that the quality which has been revealed indicates that the work is mostly from the hand of Leonardo, and that participation of members of Leonardo's workshop was almost certainly less than previously thought. Taylor disputes this, drawing attention to the fact that, at the time of writing, Pizzorusso had plainly not seen the glacial lakes to which she referred, and had mistaken clumps of moss for sandstone boulders.

Copies and derivations

One of the earliest known direct copies of the Louvre version is actually an altar cloth called the Paliotto leonardesco (ca 1487–90) housed in the Museo Baroffio, and the other is a painting (ca 1494–8) located in the Cheramy Collection, believed by Carlo Pedretti to be created by Leonardo's own hand. In her 1967 book (published in English in 1985) Angela Ottino della Chiesa identifies four paintings derived to some degree from The Virgin of the Rocks: the Holy Family and St. John by Bernardino Luini in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, the Thuelin Madonna by Marco d'Oggiono in the Thuelin collection in Paris and the Holy Infants Embracing by Joos van Cleve in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples. This image was much copied by Flemish artists including Joos van Cleve and Quentin Matsys – there is a small painting in Chatsworth by the latter. There is also a smaller copy of The Virgin of the Rocks (oil on wood) possibly by Joos van Cleve or his circle (private collection Berlin).

There is a 16th-century copy in the Royal Collection, given as a birthday present to Queen Victoria in 1847 by her husband Prince Albert.

See also

  • List of works by Leonardo da Vinci
  • The Altarpiece in the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception
  • Tête d'enfant de trois quarts à droite

References

Bibliography

  • Louvre Official Website, Virgin of the Rocks , accessed 2011-12-11
  • National Gallery, London Website, Virgin of the Rocks, accessed 2012-02-06
  • Rachel Billinge, Luke Syson and Marika Spring, Altered Angels: Two Panels from the Immaculate Conception Altarpiece once in San Francesco Grande, Milan, accessed 2012-01-05
  • Pizzorusso, Ann, Leonardo's Geology: The Authenticity of the "Virgin of the Rocks, Leonardo, Vol. 29, No. 3 (1996), pp. 197–200, The MIT Press, JSTOR
  • Tamsyn Taylor, (2011) Leonardo da Vinci and the "Virgin of the Rocks" , accessed 2012-02-06
  • [The chapter "The Graphic Works" is by Frank Zollner & Johannes Nathan].
  • Official page from the National Gallery
  • Official page from the Louvre
  • Leonardo da Vinci and the Virgin of the Rocks, Which is the earlier? A different point of view
  • Illustrations of the Paris and London versions
  • geological analysis of the two paintings by Ann C Pizzorusso
  • The side panels, National Gallery, click link for the other one
  • Leonardo da Vinci: anatomical drawings from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, exhibition catalog fully online as PDF from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Virgin of the Rocks (see index)
  • CNN: "Sketches hidden underneath Leonardo's 'Virgin of the Rocks' revealed after 500 years"
  • National Gallery reveals images of ‘abandoned’ angel and Christ underneath The Virgin of the Rocks