Next: Taste, Quality, and the Panjective World (177)
Good news, bad news
Post #1069 • October 9, 2007, 8:19 AM • 3 Comments
The good news is that Scottish police recovered a Leonardo stolen out of the Drumlanrig Castle in 2003. The bad news is that I turned too quickly from inspecting Richard Lacayo's reproduction of the painting to the sorry-looking thing on the sill of my easel. There goes the day.
My Leonardo book, by Frank Zöllner, disattributes this work, by the way, at least somewhat.
Novellara [one Fra Pietro da Novellara, a Carmeliete monk who reported on Leonardo's activities to Isabella d'Este] here supplies a careful description of the so-called Madonna of the Yarnwinder, which Leonardo had begun for Florimond Robertet (d.1524), secretary to the king of France. This small composition, with its very youthful-looking Virgin and the Christ Child, survives in a number of versions, of which two stand out for their superior artistic quality and therefore considered by some to stem at least partly from the the hand of Leonardo. ... These works are evidently replicas from Leonardo's workshop that were executed under his supervision. In his earlier letter, indeed, Novellara had mentioned the fact that "two of his apprentices are making copies and he puts his hand to one of them from time to time."
The book also quotes Goethe:
Today I read Leonardo da Vinci's book on painting and now understand why I have never been able to understand anything in it before.
Right there with you, Johann.
2.
October 9, 2007, 2:30 PM
"Scottish police found it last week in the office of a lawyer in Glasgow."
Who could have imagined such a thing? But of course, this has no bearing whatever on the integrity of the legal profession. I'm sure all the other lawyers are veritable pillars of righteousness and rectitude.
3.
October 10, 2007, 7:38 AM
I think you have the title of this post in reverse.
1.
Hans
October 9, 2007, 1:19 PM
Ha, Ha I also got frustrated on one of my paintings because of watching Leonardo in good resolution...