A mountainous landscape

A drawing of a dramatic landscape in which a town of closely packed houses and buildings with domes and campaniles lies on the plain, to the left. Immediately behind it rises a rocky hill, which is only part of a whole range, stretching away in the distance to the right. Melzi's number 135. The landscape in this drawing recalls the depths depicted in the landscape backgrounds of Mona Lisa and The Madonna and Child with St Anne and the Infant Baptist (London, National Gallery). The mountains rise indefinitely, growing larger the further away they are. The soft, grainy touch of the black chalk is closer in style to the Deluges (RCIN 912382-912386) than to the Storm (RCIN 912409), and aims, like the Deluges, at poetic mystery rather than scientific precision. Text adapted from Leonardo da Vinci: A life in drawing, London, 2018