2 LEONARDO DA VINCI Italian, 1452-1519 Studies for the Christ Child with a Lamb Pen and brown ink and black chalk 9 21 x 14.2 cm (8¼ x 5/16 in.) Cat. II, no. 22; 86.GG.725 Leonardo probably made this drawing in preparation for a painting of the Virgin and Child with Saint John, now lost but known through copies, one of which is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Three of the studies in the present sheet are in ink, while another three are faintly drawn in black chalk. The number of different sketches for the same figure group indicates the painter's painstaking approach to the planning of his compositions. Leonardo, who was left-handed, inscribed the drawing at the top of the sheet and on the reverse in his characteristic mirror script, that is, with backwards writing. Leonardo was the most versatile genius of the Italian Renaissance—a musician, scientist, inventor, and thinker as well as an artist. He must also rate as one of the greatest draftsmen in the history of Western European art, possessing prodigious powers of observation as well as great technical facility in various media. He was born near Vinci, in Tuscany, and trained in Florence, where he spent his early career, before transferring to Milan (1481—99). He returned to Florence in 1500, where he remained, with interruptions, until 1506; it was in this period that he must have made the present drawing. ITALIAN SCHOOL 9