Tracing of Leonardo da Vinci's unused underdrawing for 'The Virgin of the Rocks', superimposed on The Virgin of the Rocks.
© The National Gallery, London

The National Gallery discovers a new Leonardo

Recent examination of one of the National Gallery's most popular paintings has unearthed a remarkable discovery.

The Gallery's team of experts have used infrared reflectography to find two distinct underdrawings beneath the surface of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Virgin of the Rocks'. Though one drawing corresponds with the final version of the painting, another shows a completely different picture of a kneeling figure. Her downcast gaze and pious gestures suggest that Leonardo's initial idea was to depict the Virgin in Adoration of the Christ Child. There is no sign of the baby Jesus, but this could be because Leonardo abandoned this idea before he came to include him.

In order to obtain the clearest possible image of the hidden design, the Gallery contacted an expert team in Florence through the European Union EU-ARTECH project. The team from INOA (Istituto Nazionale di Ottica Applicata) and the OPD (Opificio delle Pietre Dure) brought to London a high-resolution digital infrared scanner which forms part of the EU-ARTECH project's mobile laboratory. Intensive collaborative study yielded spectacular images of Leonardo's concealed drawing beneath the paint layers.

'The Virgin of the Rocks' was painted for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in Milan. Leonardo made two versions of the painting: the first (now in the Louvre in Paris) was probably sold in the 1490s to a private client after a financial wrangle with the Confraternity; and a replacement - the painting now hanging in the National Gallery - that was installed in 1508. Generations of art historians have wrestled with conflicting explanations of these pictures' histories and their mutual relationship. Now this new discovery by the National Gallery is set to re-ignite the debate, challenging the view that the London painting is merely a copy of the Louvre version.

So why did Leonardo abandon his first underdrawing to revert to 'The Virgin of the Rocks' as he had already painted it? Perhaps he simply found his new idea unsatisfactory, or it may have been a simple matter of time; with so many other commissions pending, was it just easier to copy an earlier work? Or perhaps the members of the Confraternity insisted upon a copy of his first 'Virgin of the Rocks', rather than an original composition? We will probably never know the answer, but the question will perplex art lovers and historians for many years to come.

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