Leonardo da Vinci by Martin Kemp

Author:Martin Kemp
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling

A hang glider constructed in 2002 by the British firm SkySport Engineering based on Leonard’s designs; it is shown here in the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment and Design, held at the V&A museum in London in 2006.

53. Cartoon for the Portrait of Isabella d’Este

1500, Paris, Louvre

When his patron in Milan, Ludovico Sforza, was overthrown by the invading French troops of Louis XII in 1499, Leonardo decided not to remain, although offered work by the new rulers. He sent money to Florence in anticipation of his return. He first went to Venice, where he advised on hydraulic engineering, and then to Mantua, where Isabella d’Este, sister of Ludovico’s wife, gave him a ready welcome. An avid patron, Isabella had already asked Cecilia Gallerani to lend her the Leonardo portrait with the ermine (see pages 48–49) so she could compare it with portraits by Giovanni Bellini.

The main artistic fruit of Leonardo’s brief stay in Mantua is his cartoon for a portrait of Isabella, drawn in charcoal with black and colored chalks. It retained the profile format as was obligatory for aristocratic women in the North Italian courts, but the artist has attempted to give an enhanced sense of the marchioness’s presence by setting her body at an angle. Although the drawing has been damaged and trimmed, we can still delight in the delicate subtlety of Leonardo’s hand as he caresses the contours of Isabella’s face, and evokes the abundant softness of her hair in its diaphanous veil and the floating ribbons of her drapery.

The main outlines were very finely pricked so that the design could be transferred. There is a drawing in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, done by a member of Leonardo’s workshop, that has been made by transfer from this one. Isabella’s pose has been adjusted in the copy by lowering her right forearm to grant it more space. The copy also shows that her hands were resting on a parapet and that she was pointing to a book. In March 1500, Isabella’s agent in Venice mentioned that he had seen a portrait of her there executed by Leonardo; it seems that the prime version remained in Mantua and that the portrait admired by the agent in Venice was the copy.

Over the course of the next six years, Isabella wrote on a number of occasions to various intermediaries in Florence to obtain either a portrait painting of her or any other painting by Leonardo. She was not successful.

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