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‘Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan’ is the most complete display of Leonardo’s rare surviving paintings ever held. This unprecedented exhibition – the first of its kind anywhere in the world – brings together sensational international loans never before seen in the UK.

Leonardo the artist

While numerous exhibitions have looked at Leonardo da Vinci as an inventor, scientist or draughtsman, this is the first to be dedicated to his aims and techniques as a painter. Inspired by the recently restored National Gallery painting, The Virgin of the Rocks, this exhibition focuses on Leonardo as an artist. In particular it concentrates on the work he produced as court painter to Duke Lodovico Sforza in Milan in the late 1480s and 1490s.

As a painter, Leonardo aimed to convince viewers of the reality of what they were seeing while still aspiring to create ideals of beauty – particularly in his exquisite portraits – and, in his religious works, to convey a sense of awe-inspiring mystery.

Works on display

Featuring the finest paintings and drawings by Leonardo and his followers, the exhibition examines Leonardo’s pursuit for perfection in his representation of the human form. Works on display include ‘La Belle Ferronière’ (Musée du Louvre, Paris), the ‘Madonna Litta’ (Hermitage, Saint Petersburg) and ‘Saint Jerome’ (Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome).

The two versions of Leonardo’s ‘Virgin of the Rocks’ – belonging to the National Gallery and the Louvre – will also be shown together for the first time.

The version at the Louvre, which is coming to London, was the first of the two compositions to be painted. Worked on between 1483 and 1486, it was the subject of a dispute about payment with the Milan confraternity which commissioned the work. The painting is the product of Leonardo’s intense study of the natural world. No landscape quite like it had ever been painted before.

The National Gallery’s Virgin of the Rocks was painted for the confraternity as a replacement for the Louvre version, which had probably been sold during the earlier dispute. The work demonstrates a change in Leonardo’s artistic ambitions in the years around 1490. It is a composition of the most artful complexity. Displaying the paintings together will provide a unique opportunity, illuminating the painting career of Leonardo as never before.

Leonardo’s 'Saint Anne’

Following the National Gallery exhibition, there will be another opportunity to see an unprecedented display of Leonardo’s works at the Louvre. The Louvre’s ‘The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne’ will be joined in Paris by the National Gallery’s Burlington House Cartoon on the same subject at the exhibition 'Leonardo da Vinci’s St Anne’ (29 March – 25 June 2012).

The final part of the exhibition features a near-contemporary, full-scale copy of Leonardo’s famous ‘Last Supper’, on loan from the Royal Academy. Seen alongside all the surviving preparatory drawings made by Leonardo for the 'Last Supper’, visitors will discover how such a large-scale painting was designed and executed.

More than 50 drawings relating to the paintings will be exhibited for the first time. Highlights include 33 sketches and studies from the Royal Collection. The many Leonardo drawings owned by Her Majesty the Queen were probably purchased during the reign of Charles II but were rediscovered by chance only in 1778, when writer, Charles Rogers wrote: ‘Mr Dalton fortunately discovered the album of drawings at the bottom of a chest at the beginning of the reign of his present Majesty [George III]’. UK collections are rich in drawings by Leonardo – and other graphic masterpieces will be lent by the British Museum, the Courtauld Gallery, the Fitzwillam and Ashmolean Museums and the National Galleries of Scotland. From further afield come drawings from Paris, Florence, Venice and New York. The exhibition will include all the surviving drawings which are connected to the 'Last Supper’ and the 'Madonna Litta’, which will be lent by the Hermitage, St Petersburg.

Open to public:

Daily 10am–6pm (last admission 5pm)
Fridays and Saturdays until 10pm (last admission 9pm)
Sunday 10am-7pm (last admission 6pm)

Open until 10pm for the last 2 weeks
Open New Year’s Day 10am–7pm

Address: The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DN
Tel: 020 7747 2885 or information@ng-london.org.uk