Madonna Litta by Leonardo da Vinci Postcard

Madonna Litta by Leonardo da Vinci, egg tempera and oil on canvas transferred from wood panel, c. 1490, is a small painting of the Virgin Mary nursing the infant Christ Child. The figure of the infant Jesus and head of the Madonna exhibit the surety and classical grace of Leonardo’s powers of drawing, modelled in chiaroscuro in the subtle sfumato technique for which da Vinci is famous. The brilliant blue and red of the Madonna’s robes set against the azure of the distant landscape painted in hazy, aerial perspective reveal Leonardo’s strengths as a colourist. The painting is party abraded in areas and possibly unfinished, though some scholars believe that a pupil may have attempted to finish it for Leonardo. Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) was the greatest master of the High Italian Renaissance and quintessential "Renaissance Man" whose work as painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, anatomist and much more is without comparison. Born near Florence, Italy, and apprenticed to the painter Verrocchio, Leonardo invented many new ideas and extended the principles of perspective drawing, aerial perspective, the human figure and anatomy and much else to heights never seen since, during the period of rediscovery of the arts and philosophy of classical antiquity. Widely regarded as possibly the greatest artist who ever lived, Leonardo left very few completed paintings, due to either his restless experiments with painting technique that sometimes failed, or his infamous habit of procrastination.