This version of the Mona Lisa (Louvre) was painted by one of Leonardo’s pupils. The fact that each pentimento, or change, in Leonardo’s original (to the bust, outline of the veil and position of the fingers) is repeated here suggests that the two works were created simultaneously. There are also differences with respect to the original, in the unfinished landscape and on the face. Overall, the pan
With the exception of the landscape, Northern European in inspiration, the work is a reproduction on a smaller scale of an intermediate state in the execution of Leonardo da Vinci’s Saint Anne, possibly during his second period in Milan. It documents details which he had planned in the original and later modified. The copyist also simplified certain features, as Leonardo was afterwards to do in th
Leonardo made three cartoons (full-scale drawings) with different ideas for the composition of his Saint Anne. This work is one of the few preserved testimonies to the second, produced by the master before his departure for Milan in 1508 and very close to the definitive version, although the scene is inverted. Another version of this picture was lost during the Second World War.