Leonardo da Vinci and the Italian Renaissance

On this occasion, the Beaux-Arts de Paris present for the first time a set of in situ masterpieces, including four drawings by Leonardo da Vinci donated in 1883 and 1908, as well as drawings by prestigious painters, contemporaries of the master: Raphael with three drawings executed before his departure for Rome, in particular a study for a Madonna with Child and studies of drapery and male profile, but also Benozzo Gozzoli and Filippino Lippi whose leaves seduce by their technique with a touch of metal on coloured paper, very popular in Florence at that time.

Curator: Emmanuelle Brugerolles

Leonardo da Vinci's death will be commemorated in 2019 with numerous exhibitions and demonstrations in France and abroad. The École des Beaux-Arts, which welcomed La Joconde in January 1914 after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum, exhibited it for two days in the vestibule of the Palais du quai Malaquais. A century after this memorable episode, Leonardo da Vinci is back on the Jean Bonna Cabinet chair rails.
His works, which cover a wide range of subjects, give a precious insight into the artist's graphic talent and the many fields he explored during a career that took him from Florence to Milan, then to Venice, before ending up in France with Francis the first.

This exhibition is an opportunity to unveil Italian treasures that have never been exhibited before and which have been the subject of recent research on their attribution. The thirty drawings on display offer visitors an exciting journey through the practice of studio drawing in the Renaissance: copies after the masters, exercises after the living model, inventories of drawn models, preparatory studies for painted or sculpted compositions.

With more than 60,000 drawings, the Beaux-Arts collection includes 25,000 master drawings and is the second largest collection in France after the Louvre Museum. It covers a wide period from the Renaissance to the present day and has exceptional leaves where Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Rubens, Poussin and Butcher meet.