The Metropolitan Museum of Art:
ItalianCharcoal, black and red chalks
This hauntingly beautiful drawing closely relates to an oil painting on panel of the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (Musée du Louvre, Paris) from around 1508–12, and may have been a preparatory study for it. The delicately finished drawing focuses on the atmospheric dissolution of her relieflike forms, and vividly illustrates the depth of Leonardo's explorations of optical phenomena late in his career.
