Leonardo da Vinci "Madonna Benois" (1478 - 1480).
Canvas (translated from wood), oil. 48×31.5 cm
State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
"Madonna Benois" or "Madonna with a flower" (1478 - 1480) - early picture Leonardo da Vinci, supposedly left unfinished. In 1914, it was acquired by the Imperial Hermitage from Maria Alexandrovna, the wife of the court architect Leonty Nikolaevich Benois.
In 1912, the owners decided to sell the "Madonna with a Flower" and for this purpose they took it to Europe for examination, where the London antiquarian Joseph Duvin estimated it at 500 thousand francs. The attribution of the canvas to Leonardo was reluctantly confirmed by the largest authority of that time - Bernard Berenson:
“One unfortunate day I was invited to witness the Benois Madonna. Staring at me was a young woman with a bald forehead and swollen cheeks, a toothless grin, myopic eyes and a wrinkled neck! An eerie ghost of an old woman plays with a child: his face resembles an empty mask, and swollen bodies and limbs are attached to it. Pathetic hands, stupidly vain folds of skin, the color is like serum. And yet I had to admit that this terrible creature belongs to Leonardo da Vinci ... "
The public wanted the painting to remain in Russia. M.A. Benois wanted the same, and therefore lost Madonna for 150 thousand rubles. The amount was paid in installments, and the last payments were made after the October Revolution.
M.A. Benois, nee Sapozhnikova, the painting was inherited. There was a legend in the family that the painting was bought from wandering Italian musicians in Astrakhan. There was no other information about the fate of the painting at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1908, E.K. Lipgart wrote: “[The painting] was part of the ancient collection of the princes Kurakins, and now belongs to M.A. Benois, wife of a famous architect."
A few years later, he corrected himself: "Mr. Benoit's father-in-law bought it [the painting] from Italian booth-makers while moving through Astrakhan."
This version was widely replicated by other authors. Often, without any reference to sources, they added that the work was once in the collection of the Counts Konovnitsyn.
Only in 1974 were documentary data made public about when and under what circumstances the Madonna with a Flower came to the Sapozhnikovs. IN State Archive Astrakhan region was discovered "Register of paintings by Mr. Alexander Petrovich Sapozhnikov, compiled in 1827". In the inventory, the first number is “The Mother of God, holding the eternal Child on her left hand... Above with an oval. Master Leonardo da Vinci... From the collection of General Korsakov. Thus, it turned out that the painting came from the collection of the collector and senator Alexei Ivanovich Korsakov (1751/53-1821).
However, there is still no exact information about the earlier fate of the painting. It is believed that M. F. Bocchi spoke about this picture in his book “Sights of the City of Florence”, published in 1591: . The figure of Christ, represented as a baby, is beautiful and amazing, his raised face is one of a kind and amazing in the complexity of the idea and how this idea is successfully resolved.
"MadonnaWithflower"LeonardoYesVinci
Of the few paintings by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) that have survived to this day, two are in the Hermitage (room 2.1.4). At the heart of the "Madonna with a Flower" ("Madonna Benois") - one of early works artist, there is a living, concrete content that expresses the humanistic idea of man as the most perfect creation of nature. With love and joy, a young woman watches the awakening of consciousness in a child. In a childish concentration, he tries to grab the flower petals that his mother brings him, and carefully examines them. The scene that captures the moment of cognition is important in cartia not only for revealing ideological content- it contributes to a more logical and natural compositional connection of the figures. The light from the window allows only in general terms to imagine the space of the room. Another light source, located in the front left and slightly above, gently highlights the figures of the Madonna and Child, emphasizes their volume, helps to feel warmth. human body, consider the fabric of clothing and a brooch decorated with stones.
Here, as in other works of the great master, the inextricable connection between Leonardo's pictorial work and his activities as a scientist affected. Confidently, based on knowledge of anatomy and the study of the proportions of the human body, Leonardo conveys the figure of a seated woman and the features of the child's body. The study of physiognomy, numerous sketches made it possible for the artist to catch and show in the paintings the subtlest changes in facial expressions, sometimes the moment the face begins to move, forcing one to guess its next state. The appearance in the works of Leonardo of "sfumato" (as the Italians called the airy haze enveloping the figures of people) was based on his own scientific conclusion that the air has color. Leonardo, who experimented a lot in search of the composition of paints, was one of the first in Italy to switch from tempera painting to work. oil paints, which enriched the possibilities of the artist. The “Madonna with a Flower”, executed in this then still rare technique, is evidence that the twenty-six-year-old master quickly mastered new material and methods of work, creating one of his first masterpieces.
Included in the "major league" of the world's museum treasures. There are three million exhibits in its collection, and the magnificent collection, begun by Catherine the Great, is replenished to this day. We offer a short tour of the Hermitage - and 10 must-see paintings.
Leonardo da Vinci. Madonna and Child (Madonna Benois)
Italy, 1478-1480
The second name comes from the names of the owners of the picture. Under what circumstances the work of the great Leonardo came to Russia is still unknown. There is a legend that the Benois family bought it from a traveling circus. The masterpiece went to Maria Sapozhnikova (after marriage - Benois) as an inheritance from her father. In 1914, the Hermitage acquired this painting from her. True, after the revolution, in the difficult 1920-30s, the government of the USSR almost sold it to the US Secretary of the Treasury, a passionate collector Andrew Mellon. Art historians who opposed this sale were lucky: the deal fell through.
Raphael. Madonna and Child (Madonna Conestabile)
Italy, around 1504
"Madonna and Child" - one of the early works of Raphael. Alexander II purchased this painting in Italy from Count Conestabile for his beloved wife Maria Alexandrovna. In 1870, this gift cost the emperor 310,000 francs. The sale of Raphael's work outraged the local community, but the Italian government did not have the funds to buy the painting from the owner. The property of the Empress was immediately exhibited in the Hermitage building.
Titian. Danae
Italy, circa 1554
The painting by Titian Catherine II acquired in 1772. The painting is based on a myth in which King Acrisius was predicted that he would die at the hands of his own grandson, and in order to avoid this, he imprisoned his daughter Danae. However, the resourceful god Zeus nevertheless penetrated to her in the form of a golden torrential rain, after which Danae gave birth to a son, Perseus.
Catherine II was an enlightened monarch, had excellent taste and perfectly understood what exactly needed to be purchased for her collection. There are several more paintings in the Hermitage with a similar plot. For example, "Danae" Verwilt and "Danae" Rembrandt.
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos). Apostles Peter and Paul
Spain, between 1587–1592
The painting was donated to the museum in 1911 by Pyotr Durnovo. A few years earlier, Durnovo had shown it at an exhibition of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of Arts. Then they talked about El Greco, who was considered a very mediocre artist, as a genius. In this canvas, the painter, who was always far from European academicism, turned out to be especially close to the Byzantine icon painting tradition. He tried to convey spiritual world and characters of the apostles. Paul (in red) is assertive, resolute and self-confident, while Peter, on the contrary, is doubtful and hesitant ... It is believed that El Greco captured himself in the image of Paul. But researchers are still arguing about this.
Caravaggio. Youth with a lute
Italy, 1595-1596
Caravaggio - famous master baroque, which turned over with its "cellar" light the consciousness of several generations of European artists. Only one of his works is kept in Russia, which the artist painted in his youth. A certain drama is characteristic of Caravaggio's paintings, and there is it in The Lute Player. In the music book depicted on the table, the popular melody of the madrigal Yakov Arkadelt “You know that I love you” is recorded at that time. And the cracked lute in the hands of a young man is a symbol of unhappy love. The canvas was purchased by Alexander I in 1808.
Peter Paul Rubens. Portrait of the Maid Infanta Isabella
Flanders, mid 1620s
Despite the name, it is believed that this is a portrait of the artist's daughter, Clara Serena, who died at the age of 12. The picture was created after the death of the girl. The artist subtly wrote out both fluffy hair, and delicate skin of the face, and a thoughtful look, from which it is impossible to look away. A spiritual and poetic image appears before the viewer.
Catherine II purchased the painting for the Hermitage collection in 1772.
Rembrandt van Rijn. Return of the prodigal son
Holland, circa 1668
Catherine II bought one of the most famous and recognizable paintings by Rembrandt in 1766. The gospel parable of the prodigal son worried the artist throughout his life: he created the first drawings and etchings on this subject back in the 1630s and 40s, and took up painting in the 1660s. Rembrandt's canvas has become an inspiration for other creative personalities. The avant-garde composer Benjamin Britten wrote an opera inspired by this work. And director Andrei Tarkovsky quoted “The Return prodigal son” in one of the final scenes of Solaris.
Edgar Degas. Place de la Concorde (Viscount Lepic with his daughters crossing Place de la Concorde)
France, 1875
The painting "Concord Square" was transported to Russia after the Second World War from Berlin - there it was kept in a private collection. The canvas is interesting in that, on the one hand, it is a portrait, and on the other, a genre sketch typical of the Impressionists from the life of the city. Degas portrayed his close friend, the aristocrat Ludovic Lepic, along with his two daughters. The multi-figure portrait still holds many mysteries. It is not known when and under what circumstances the painting was created. Art historians suggest that the work was painted in 1876 and not to order. The artist did not write another similar picture either before or after. Needing money, he nevertheless sold the canvas to Count Lepic, and until the end of the 19th century they did not know about him. After the fall of Berlin in 1945, the masterpiece, among other "trophy" works, was sent to Soviet Union and ended up in the Hermitage.
Henri Matisse. Dance
France, 1909–1910
The painting was commissioned by Sergei Shchukin, a well-known Russian collector of French painting XIX- the beginning of the XX century. The composition is written on the theme of the golden age of mankind, and therefore it depicts not specific people, but symbolic images. Matisse was inspired by folk dances, which, as you know, keep the rituality of a pagan action. The fury of the ancient bacchanalia Matisse embodied in a combination of pure colors - red, blue and green. As symbols of Man, Heaven and Earth. The painting was transferred to the Hermitage from the Moscow collection State Museum New Western Art in 1948.
Wassily Kandinsky. Composition VI
Germany, 1913
The Hermitage has a whole hall dedicated to the work of Wassily Kandinsky. "Composition VI" was created in Munich in May 1913 - a year before the start of the First World War. The dynamic bright picture is painted with free and sweeping strokes. Initially, Kandinsky wanted to call it "The Flood": the abstract canvas was based on a biblical story. However, later the artist abandoned this idea so that the title of the work would not interfere with the viewer's perception. The canvas came to the museum from the State Museum of New Western Art in 1948.
The material used illustrations from the official website
History of a painting.
"Madonna with a Flower (Madonna Benois)".
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci "Madonna Benois", 1478-1480, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)
The small Tuscan town of Vinci was once home to one of the greatest geniuses humanity. At the age of ten, Leonardo, the son of a notary and a peasant woman, moved to Florence - the epicenter of economic, industrial and cultural life the Renaissance. Here he learned the basics artistic creativity, and even then he showed an unusual versatility of interests. Among other things, Leonardo was fascinated by science, but his contemporaries believed that it only distracted from serving the high ideals of art. In part, they were right, because the genius's excessive enthusiasm for all spheres of life served as an indirect reason for his modest pictorial heritage, which today numbers a little more than ten works. But on the other hand, it was scientific research that contributed to the fact that each of the paintings created by Leonardo is an invaluable example of how high the human spirit can soar, striving for knowledge of the world. The painting “Madonna with a Flower” is one of such testimonies.
Most researchers attribute the creation of this painting to 1478, which means that Leonardo da Vinci painted it when he was only 26 years old. In 1914, the Madonna with a Flower was purchased for the collection of the Imperial Hermitage from the private collection of the Benois family. Shortly before this, Ernst Karlovich Lipgart, the curator of the Hermitage art gallery, suggested that the work was painted by the great Leonardo, and in this he was supported by leading European experts. It is known that already in the first third of the 19th century, the “Madonna with a Flower” was in Russia with General Korsakov, from whose collection it later came to the family of the Astrakhan merchant Sapozhnikov. Maria Alexandrovna Benois, nee Sapozhnikova, inherited this painting, and when she decided to sell it in 1912, a London antiquary offered 500,000 francs for it. Nevertheless, for a much more modest amount, the owner gave the "Madonna" to the Hermitage - she wished that Leonardo's creation remained in Russia.
Quite modest and unpretentious at first glance, the “Madonna with a Flower” is surprising in that it reveals its charm far from immediately, but gradually, as you immerse yourself in this special inner world. The Mother of God and baby Jesus are surrounded by twilight, but the depth of this space is clearly indicated by a bright window. The Virgin Mary is still a girl: plump cheeks, an upturned nose, a perky smile - all these are features not of an abstract divine ideal, but of a completely specific earthly girl who once served as a model for this image. She is dressed and combed in the fashion of the 15th century, and every detail of her costume, every curl of her hairstyle is carefully examined by the artist and rendered in Renaissance detail. The love and joy of motherhood was reflected on her face, focused on playing with a child. She holds out a flower to him, and he tries to grab it, and the whole scene is so vital and convincing that it's time to forget about the upcoming tragedy of Christ. Nevertheless, the flower with its cruciform inflorescence is not just the compositional center of the whole picture, but also a sign, a symbol, an omen of the coming Passion. And it seems that in this conscious and concentrated face of a baby reaching for a flower, the future Savior is already visible, who accepts his predestined cross. But on the other hand, in this gesture there is also a symbol of the Renaissance with its boundless desire to know the world, discover its secrets, go beyond its borders - in general, everything that Leonardo himself aspired to.
The harmony of the whole in Leonardo is created through the synthesis of details: mathematically verified composition, anatomical construction of bodies, light and shade modeling of volumes, soft contours and warm sound of colors. The traditional plot is rethought here: the image of the Madonna is more human than ever, and the scene itself is more ordinary than religious. The figures are voluminous and almost tangible due to the subtle play of light and shadow. Each fold of clothing falls according to the volume of the body and is filled with movement. Leonardo was one of the first in Italy to use the technique of oil painting, which allows him to more accurately convey the texture of fabrics, the nuances of chiaroscuro, and the materiality of objects. In order to visualize even more clearly how far all these discoveries extended at that time, it is enough to simply compare Leonardo's Madonna with the work of his predecessor and teacher, the painter Andrea Verrocchio.
Madonna and Child
Andrea Verrocchio
Around 1473-1475
Wood, tempera
Initially, "Madonna with a Flower" was painted on wood, but for better preservation in 1824 it was transferred to canvas.
In 2012, the painting turned 534 years old.
Leonardo da Vinci. "Madonna and Child" ("Madonna Litta"). The painting will go on display at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan. Photo: State Hermitage Museum
The Italian town of Fabriano with a population of only 30,000 people will receive from Russia for temporary use one of the most important paintings by Leonardo da Vinci. The State Hermitage has promised to lend the Benois Madonna (1478-1480), one of the most valuable works in its collection, to a museum in Fabriano, in the Marche region of Central Italy.
Less than 20 works have survived that are indisputably attributed to the brush of Leonardo, so a real struggle unfolded for the opportunity to get the master’s work on the 500th anniversary of his death (May 2, 1519). The decision to send the Benois Madonna to Fabriano is a diplomatic one: from June 10 to 15, there will be a UNESCO conference dedicated to "creative cities", which will be attended by delegations from 180 countries. The painting will be exhibited at the Municipal Pinakothek named after Bruno Molajoli from 1 to 30 June. After Fabriano, she will travel to Perugia for an exhibition at the National Gallery of Umbria from 4 July to 4 August.
There is a legend that wandering Italian musicians brought the Benois Madonna to Russia, although in fact its acquisition was most likely the result of an ordinary transaction in the 1790s. It is known that in 1908 the painting was owned by the Benois family in St. Petersburg, and six years later it was bought by Nicholas II, who paid for it an amount corresponding to modern £ 300 thousand - until the 1960s, it remained a record price for a work art in real monetary terms.
The Benois Madonna will be loaned to two Italian museums located just a few dozen kilometers apart. Photo: State Hermitage Museum
In addition, the Hermitage promised to lend Italy one more work by Leonardo from its collection - Madonna Litta will become the central exhibit at the exhibition Leonardo. "Madonna Litta" and the artist's studio" at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan (November 8, 2019 - February 10, 2020). Painted in 1490-1492 in Milan, the painting remained in the city until 1865, when Alexander II purchased it from the Litta family.
The curators of the Hermitage are sure that the “Madonna Litta” belongs entirely to the brush of Leonardo, however, there are many art historians who do not agree with them and believe that the painting was painted by one of his students, most likely Marco d’Oggiono or Giovanni Boltraffio. In 2011, when the work was exhibited at the National Gallery in London, the Hermitage requested that its description in the exhibition catalog be written by St. Petersburg curator Tatiana Kustodieva. She called the painting "the most valuable treasure of the Hermitage", which caused a mixed reaction in art history circles.
At the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan, the Litta Madonna will most likely be presented as an original by Leonardo. Paired with it will be another work from the collection of the Litta family - "Madonna of the Rose" (circa 1490) Boltraffio. The museum promises that the exhibition will help to understand "the relationship between Leonardo and his students."
In the autumn of 1478, he writes down in one of his notebooks, next to various sketches, the following words: "... in 1478 I started two virgin Marys." On the sheets of his drawings dating back to the same time, we really find a large number of sketches for the composition “Madonna and Child”, and with his usual thoroughness and attention, he sketches both the various positions of the bodies of matter and the child, as well as details: hands with folds of light and heavy clothing, pieces of cloth. These drawings are still somewhat naive and dryish, but they already speak of a gradual mastery of technique.
Their line becomes more confident, shading and shading sets off volumes. Numerous variants of different and similar positions of the bodies of the mother, the child, and both together are undoubted evidence that the young master strove to convey with light strokes of a pencil or pen the fleeting impressions received from observations of reality, to capture this reality in all its vital dynamics.
The first of the two Madonnas that Leonardo writes about and which was created on the basis of many sketches is the Benois Madonna.
When Leonardo wrote it, he was twenty-six years old. By this time, the artist had already acquired perfect mastery in the great art of painting, which, as we shall see, he placed above all others.
“Madonna with a flower” (“Madonna Benois”) is chronologically the first Madonna, the image of which is internally devoid of any kind of holiness.
Madonna is given the appearance of a somewhat sickly girl playing with an oversized baby sitting on her lap. A peculiar dead green coloring, an emphatically realistic interpretation of the human body, increased attention to the depiction of the play of light and shadow on separate parts of the body, the complex position of both figures - everything in this picture shows us the young Leonardo, although he is still looking for a broad free style, but already firmly who have embarked on the path that he will follow in the course of his future activities.
Both figures, closely inscribed in the picture, almost completely fill its entire surface, only on the right, at the top, there is a small lancet window, apparently unfinished by the artist. One must think that he intended to place here his favorite mountain landscape with a river, reminiscent of the views of his native Vinci, but, as usual, dragged on the work and, moving on to something else, left this detail unfinished.
The light on the figures in the picture falls mainly from the left, but it is very possible that it is a small window and, probably, the mountains and water located behind it, that determine that the room in which the Madonna is located is poorly lit and, moreover, with a peculiar greenish light. It paints everything in greenish tones, throws greenish highlights on the exposed parts of the body, creates thick shadows in places that are darker, obscured by something from the light falling from the window.
The compositional and ideological center of the picture is the interweaving of three hands: two plump little hands of a boy and a tender, girlish hand of a mother holding a flower by the stem, to which the attentive and affectionate look of the Madonna and the inquisitive, serious look of a baby trying to awkwardly grab the flower are directed. The thirst for knowledge, childishly unconscious, but not childishly passionate, that knowledge that tormented and drove forward Leonardo, is expressed in the whole appearance of a baby. The viewer's gaze is involuntarily riveted to the semantic center of the picture - the interlacing of three hands, the simple and modest scene depicted in it acquires significance and ideological depth. A small picture attracts attention, interests, excites.
