Royal Collection Trust /© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019
A new exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing has opened at The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace, marking the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death. More than 200 drawings have been selected from the Royal Collection, making this the largest exhibition of da Vinci’s work for over 65 years.
Running until 13 October 2019, Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing explores the full range of his interests – painting, sculpture, architecture, anatomy, engineering, cartography, geology and botany – and provides a comprehensive survey of da Vinci’s life and a unique insight into the workings of his mind.
Royal Collection Trust /© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019
The exhibition follows 12 simultaneous exhibitions of Leonardo’s drawings from the Royal Collection at museums and galleries across the UK, which attracted more than a million visitors. In November 2019, a selection of 80 drawings will travel to The Queen’s Gallery in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, to form the largest exhibition of da Vinci’s work in Scotland.
Leonardo da Vinci was revered in his day as a painter but he completed only around 20 paintings. He was also respected as a sculptor and architect, but no sculptures or buildings by him survive. He was a military and civil engineer who plotted with Machiavelli to divert the river Arno, but the scheme was never realised. As a scientist, he dissected 30 human bodies with the intention of compiling an illustrated treatise on anatomy, and planned other treatises on light, water, botany, mechanics and more, but none of these were ever finished.
Royal Collection Trust /© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019
With so much of da Vinci’s work unrealised, many of his achievements survive only in his drawings and manuscripts. Few of da Vinci’s drawings were intended for others to see – drawing served as his laboratory, allowing him to work out his ideas on paper and search for the universal laws that he believed underpinned all of creation.
Exhibition curator Martin Clayton, Head of Prints and Drawings at Royal Collection Trust said, “The drawings of Leonardo da Vinci are both beautiful and the main source of our knowledge of the artist. We hope that as many people as possible will take this unique opportunity to see these extraordinary works, which allow us to enter one of the greatest minds in history.”
Royal Collection Trust /© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019
In addition to more than 200 works by da Vinci, the exhibition features a number of works by his contemporaries, including the only two drawings of da Vince made during his lifetime. One is the well-known formal portrait drawn by his pupil Francesco Melzi, A portrait of Leornardo; the second, on public display for the first time, is A sketch of Leonardo, made by a second assistant. Completed in the years shortly before Leonardo’s death in 1519, these depictions of the artist, displayed alongside much of his life’s work, bring us closer to a sense of Leonardo da Vinci the man.
