Leonardo Da Vinci

Pictor, sculptor italian - (1452-1519)


La Gioconda - 1503-1507



The Last Supper (Cina cea de taina) - 1498



Madonna of the Carnation - 1475



The Annunciation. c. 1472-1475



The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne

English: Benois Madonna by Leonardo da Vinci

Oil on canvas, transferred from panel. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

Mary and her child are naturally engrossed in their game, and their gazes make them appear lifelike to a degree that can be found in no contemporary Italian painting of the Madonna. Leonardo achieved this quality by means of nature studies. In 1478, he noted that he was working on two Madonnas. The Benois Madonna can be dated to that period. The painting has in its present condition been overpainted in some places and has lost some of the paint layer.
The painting was also called the Madonna Benois because of the family who owned it. This canvas demonstrates the newly developed method of chiaroscuro - a lighting/shading technique that made the figures appear three dimensional. It entered the Hermitage in 1914.

* Date: circa 1478
* Technique: Oil on canvas (originally panel)
* Dimensions: 19.5 × 12.5" (49.5 × 31.8 cm)
* Location: Hermitage, St. Petersburg