The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist

Common card · No. 400510

The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist, sometimes called the Burlington House Cartoon, is a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. The drawing is in charcoal and black and white chalk, on eight sheets of paper that are glued together. Because of its large size and format the drawing is presumed to be a cartoon for a painting. No painting by Leonardo exists that is based directly on this cartoon, although the drawing may have been in preparation for a now lost or unexecuted painting commissioned by Louis XII. The drawing is the only extant larger-scale drawing by the artist. The drawing depicts the Virgin Mary seated on the thigh of her mother, Saint Anne, while holding the Christ Child as Christ's young cousin, John the Baptist, stands to the right. It currently hangs in the National Gallery in London. It was executed either around 1499–1500, at the end of the artist's first Milanese period, or around 1506–1508, when he was travelling back and forth between Florence and...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Leonardo da Vinci, Public domain