For the first time ever, Leonardo da Vinci’s preparatory drawing for the painting “Adoration of the Magi” was on public display outside of Italy. The venue was the Library of Congress, which hosted a special two-day public showing on Dec. 7-8.
Rome-based Finmeccanica, an aerospace and defense company, sponsored the display. Before the public viewing, Finmeccanica sponsored a private gala on the evening of Dec. 6.
“The Library of Congress is proud to host the first-ever showing of this da Vinci drawing in the United States,” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington on the occasion. “Da Vinci valued knowledge across the broad spectrum of human endeavor, and it is appropriate that it be displayed here within the world’s most comprehensive repository of knowledge.”
Pier Francesco Guarguaglini, chairman and CEO of Finmeccanica, said, “It is an honor for us to bring this work of art to the United States. Da Vinci was an artist-engineer: a painter, a sculptor and a designer of technologies of the future. Da Vinci’s innovative style, his perfect union of form and function and his design excellence are all attributes we aspire to at Finmeccanica.”
The preparatory drawing for the “Adoration of the Magi,” the painting commissioned to da Vinci for the main altar of the monastery of San Donato a Scopeto near Florence, reveals the Italian genius’s innovative approach to art. His originality and mastery of perspective are evident in the magnitude of the illusionary space that he created. He drew the ground first, then a plan for the buildings and finally animated the scene with human figures and animals. Using a millimetric ruler, appointed stylus and very fine threads, da Vinci created the perspective grid to transfer the drawing on a larger scale as a painting on a wooden panel.
Results of the recent scientific analysis undertaken both on the preparatory drawing and on the wooden panel painting of the “Adoration of the Magi” were also presented at the Library of Congress viewing. These analyses, carried out using the most advanced noninvasive technology, have established how the panel, left unfinished by da Vinci when he left Florence in 1482 to enter the service of Ludovico Sforza in Milan, was re-elaborated in a later period.
It can now be demonstrated that da Vinci made a detailed drawing with lampblack and covered it with a thin white lead priming, to guide the spreading of the paint. The latter appears limited to a sample of sky and faint shadows of parts of the figures and architecture. In a later period, another artist added various layers of black and brown paint, thus hiding significant parts of da Vinci’s original work. Therefore, only now can da Vinci’s masterpiece be appreciated in its original authenticity.
Finmeccanica is a leading high-tech company, operating in the design and manufacture of helicopters, aerostructures, satellites, space infrastructure, missiles and defense electronics. It plays a leading role in the global aerospace and defense industry, and participates in some of the biggest international programs in the sector through well-established alliances with worldwide partners.
The presentation titled “Share the Perspective of Genius: Leonardo’s Study for the Adoration of the Magi” is accessible on the Library’s Web site at www.loc.gov/exhibits/leonardo/.