sculptures of the divine Leonardo there was nothing…. Until today. Because according to a new expertise, The Virgin and the Child, which laughs, long attributed to the talented florentine artist Antonio Rossellino, would, in fact, from the hand of Leonardo da Vinci. If this sensational news of the Guardian came to be confirmed, it would make this work the only sculpture of the Renaissance genius to have spent the time.

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The sculpture is currently on display at the Strozzi palace of Florence, which receives up to July 14, the exhibition “Verrocchio, master of Leonardo”. Victoria & Albert Museum

The history of art knows the curse that has struck the work of sculptor, and painter of The Jocond e. A black legend was fuelled for a long time. We know the fate of the clay model of the famous equestrian statue of a giant, dedicated to Ludovico Sforza, destroyed like a vulgar horse of wood by the crossbowmen of Louis XII.

The re-attribution to Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin and the Child who laughs is based on a new analysis of the work of the Italian scholar Francesco Cagliotti. In defending this thesis, this professor of the university of Naples, recognized specialist of the Renaissance in Italy, contradicts the work of another luminary in the history of art, John Pope-Hennessy, a former director of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

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The sculpture is currently on display at the Strozzi palace of Florence, which receives up to July 14, the exhibition Verrocchio, master of Leonardo . Always according to Cagliotti, it would be in the workshop of Andrea Del Verrocchio, the young Leonardo would have sculpted at the age of twenty years, around the year 1472, The Virgin and the Child who laughs .

in Order to support his thesis, the professor of university Italian ahead of the common sense arguments difficult to refute. The folds of the dress, the smile of the child, and a few preparatory drawings, laughter, childish preserved the genius of the Renaissance could, in effect, convince the most obstinate of specialists. A new mystery, and soon a new battle of experts are beginning.

An overview of the work of Antonio Rosselino (1427-1479)

The history of the equestrian statue of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)