The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (cartoon)

The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne is a cartoon said to have been created by Leonardo da Vinci as part of his "Virgin and Child with Saint Anne" project, and now considered lost. It is known from a letter written on April 3, 1501, by Fra Pietro Novellara, Isabella d'Este's envoy to the painter. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as "Fra Pietro's cartoon". Although still hypothetical, its existence seems to be confirmed by paintings by Raffaello and Andrea del Brescianino that are said to have been made from it, as well as by various pencil studies.

The drawing, if it ever existed, features some of the most important figures in Christianity. It is a full-length portrait depicting a group formed by Mary seated on the lap of her mother, Saint Anne, and stretching out her arms towards her son Jesus of Nazareth, who is riding a lamb at her feet. The drawing evokes the moment when Jesus challenges his mother to accept his future Passion, aided by his grandmother, who also symbolizes the Church.

Dated between 1500 and April 1501, this is the second of three cartoons the painter needed to create the painting The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne in the Louvre: it follows the abandoned Burlington House cartoon by a few months, and precedes by a year to a year and a half the equally lost cartoon from which the Louvre painting is derived. It marks a significant stage in the painter's thinking: he abandons the figure of St. John the Baptist in favor of that of the lamb; and while it bears great similarities to the painting, the cartoon differs mainly in that its figures adopt a more upright posture and are oriented in an inverted left-to-right image.

The composition, and in particular the motif formed by the Infant Jesus straddling the lamb, met with some success among the painter's followers. This motif can be found in works by Raphael, Bernardino Luini and Giampietrino.

The work

Description Although the cartoon is lost, researchers have a picture of it, if not a precise one, at least one that contains significant elements. They rely on the description given by the Carmelite monk Fra Pietro da Novellara in a letter to Isabella d'Este dated April 3, 1501:

Fra Pietro da Novellara presents three figures – the Infant Jesus, his mother Mary and Saint Anne – and evokes the presence of a lamb, but not that of John the Baptist. He describes their attitudes: all the figures are seated, one behind the other; however, the two women, bent over, are about to stand up. He also shows Saint Anne preventing the Virgin from separating the baby Jesus from the sacrificial lamb. Finally, he specifies that the drawing is organized "left-handed" ("la man sinistra"), which corresponds to the opposite direction of the painting in the Louvre.The various French translations of the phrase "ad l'altra verso la man sinistra" are as follows: suggests "turned to the left", , "in a movement directed to the left" and , "one stands somewhat in front of the other on the left hand".

Subject

The cartoon of Saint Anne, the Virgin and the Child Jesus is part of the Christian iconographic theme of the "Trinitarian Saint Anne", in which the Child Jesus, his mother Mary and his grandmother Anne are depicted together. The painting of The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne was Leonardo da Vinci's first work to depict the subject.

This theme enters into the context of the Marian cult, in particular to justify the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, according to which Mary, receiving in anticipation the fruits of the resurrection of her son Jesus Christ, was conceived free from original sin.She was therefore not corrupted by the initial fault that has since given every human being a tendency to commit evil. According to the Catholic Church's definition, this is "the privilege whereby, by virtue of an exceptional grace, the Virgin Mary was born preserved from original sin. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception was proclaimed by Pius IX in 1854. Not to be confused with the virginal conception of Jesus by Mary", as defined by the Conférence des évêques de France (French Bishops' Conference), This miracle meant that her own mother, Anne, gained in theological importance. From then on, the cult of Saint Anne grew, so that the "Trinitarian Saint Anne" became an earthly trinity in reference to the heavenly Trinity. Shortly before Leonardo da Vinci's period of activity, Pope Sixtus IV encouraged this cult by introducing an indulgence that promised remission of sins to anyone who prayed before the image of Anna metterza (Saint Anne, the Virgin and Child). A few examples of the triad of Saint Anne, the Virgin and the Child can be seen in the 13th and 14th centuries, before this iconographic theme gained in importance at the end of the 15th century, mainly in the form of sculptures and paintings.

History of the piece

A presumption of existence sometimes controversial As evidence of the research that led to the creation of the Louvre's Sainte Anne, we have the Burlington House cartoon, three composition drawings and thirteen detail studies preserved around the world.

In 1887, a letter dated April 3, 1501, addressed to Isabella d'Este by her envoy to the painter in Florence, the Carmelite monk Fra Pietro Novellara, was discovered in the Mantua archives: in which he describes in great detail a cartoon by Leonardo da Vinci that he has just seen. Researchers at the end of the 19th century considered this to be a description of the cartoon used by the painter to begin the painting of Saint Anne, since the general outline (characters and composition) was very similar. This confusion is exacerbated by the fact that Giorgio Vasari's Vite refers to the exhibition of a cartoon in Florence's Santissima Annunziata at the beginning of the 16th century, which would have included Saint Anne, the Virgin Mary, the Child Jesus, the Lamb and Saint John:Vasari speaks of a "little Saint John having fun with a lamb". Quoted in this testimony then creates a vagueness between Fra Pietro's cartoon, the one in Burlington House, which slightly precedes it, and the one for the painting of Saint Anne, which is one or two years older.

Yet Novellara's testimony contains significant elements that dissociate them: on the one hand, the presence of a lamb completely rules out the Burlington House Cartoon composition; on the other hand, the figures are described as facing to the left, whereas the figures in the Saint Anne painting face to the right. It wasn't until 1929 that Austrian art historian Wilhelm Suida identified these inconsistencies. He made a comparison with two paintings by the brothers Raffaello (?) and Andrea del Brescianino, guided by the similarities of the text with the composition, the attitude of the figures and their "left-hand" orientation.

For some, however, this theory is still stumped by the orientation described by Novellara: perhaps he was looking from the point of view of the figure (which would correspond to the orientation of the painting in the Louvre) and not from that of the viewer (corresponding to an opposite orientation). In 1979, Carlo Pedretti confirmed the hypothesis of the viewer's orientation to the left with the discovery of a study he believed might be by the master's hand,However, this attribution is still disputed by a number of the researcher's colleagues. and in any case contemporary with it. Since then, a number of researchers have rallied around the idea of a second cartoon: in addition to Carlo Pedretti, they include Daniel Arasse, Carmen C. Bambach, Vincent Delieuvin and Frank Zöllner.

Dating The dating of this cartoon, produced as part of a project to compose a "Trinitarian Saint Anne", which led to the painting The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne in the Louvre, is fairly well circumscribed: it is dated after the creation of the Burlington House Cartoon,Nevertheless, the dating of the Burlington House Cartoon is the subject of wide disagreement among researchers, some of whom estimate that it was created after 1506. i.e. after 1500, and cannot be later than its public exhibition in April 1501.

The fate of the cartoon is totally unknown after its exhibition in Florence and the painter's departure from the city.

A creation within the framework of the creation of a Saint Anne

By 1501, Leonardo da Vinci, who was approaching fifty, was a recognized painter, and his fame extended beyond the Italian peninsula. Nevertheless, his life was in an important phase of transition: in September 1499, Louis XII's French invaded Milan, and the painter lost his powerful patron Ludovico il Moro. He then hesitated about his allegiances: should he follow his former protector or turn to Louis XII, who quickly made contact with him? Nevertheless, the French quickly became hated by the population, and Leonardo decided to leave. This exile, described by his contemporaries as erratic,Fra Pietro Novellara, Isabella d'Este's envoy to the painter, testified: "his existence is so unstable and uncertain that he seems to be living from day to day". took him first to Mantua – to the Marchioness Isabella d'Este, for whom he created a cartoon for his portrait – then to Venice, and finally to his native Florence.

According to a chronology widely spread within the scientific community, Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to paint a Saint Anne around 1499–1500, by an unspecified patron. In the early 1500s, he drew up a first cartoon – the Burlington House Cartoon – as an initial idea for the composition. Abandoning this proposal, he quickly created a second one, in which he discarded the infant John the Baptist in favor of a lamb: this would thus be the cartoon The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, known as "of Fra Pietro", exhibited in Florence in April 1501, taken over by Raphael and now lost. Setting aside his composition once again, the painter finally created a final cartoon from which the painting The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, now in the Louvre, would emerge.

In the end, although this project for a "Trinitarian Saint Anne" seems to have taken shape around 1499–1500, with the painting of the Louvre picture beginning around 1503, the process took much longer, since it covered the last twenty years of the painter's life, and the picture was still unfinished when he died in 1519.

Title As the reality of this cartoon is still hypothetical despite its very high probability, there is no established title truly attributed to it: authors refer to it as "first" or "second cartoon" depending on the theory retained by each researcher as to the dating of the projects leading to the Saint Anne painting. In the same way that the first of the three cartons has been named by the scientific community as the Burlington House Carton, Vincent Delieuvin calls it the "Fra Pietro cartoon" to differentiate it from the other two.

Finally, it would be possible to take into account the titles given to the works that resulted from them (in greater or lesser proportion): The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne or directly Sainte Anne for the one created by Andrea del Brescianino; The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne for the painting by Leonardo da Vinci of which it is a preparatory stage. In fact, only Daniel Arasse seems to name it directly: "Leonardo was working in Florence in 1501 [...] on the second cartoon (no longer existing) of "The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne", a title which, under his pen, constitutes the generic title of any work leading to the painting in the Louvre.

Creation

Inspiration sources