Royal Collection to lend drawings 500 years after death of master
SKETCHES by the finest mind of the Renaissance are to be seen in Birmingham for the first time.
To mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, 12 of the master’s drawings from the Royal Collection will be shown at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.
The special event, which runs from February 1 to May 6, is part of 12 simultaneous exhibitions across the UK.
Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing will give the widest-ever UK audience the opportunity to see the work of this extraordinary artist, with 144 of his greatest drawings from the Royal Collection forming the 12 exhibitions.
Twelve drawings, selected to reflect the full range of Leonardo’s interests – painting, sculpture, architecture, music, anatomy, engineering, cartography, geology and botany – will be shown at each venue.
Visitors to Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery will see the intricacy of da Vinci’s output through 12 works never displayed in the city before. Drawings will include the Head of an Old Bearded Man (c.1517-18), and A Map of the Valdichiana (c.1503-4).
Da Vinci only completed around 20 known paintings.
Though he was respected as a sculptor and architect, no sculpture or buildings by him survive.
But he was also a military and civil engineer who plotted with Machiavelli to divert the river Arno, but the scheme was never executed.
His interests also stretched anatomy and he dissected human corpses, though groundbreaking work was published.
He planned treatises on painting, water, mechanics, the growth of plants and many other subjects, but none was ever finished.
A museum spokesman said: “As so much of his life’s work was unrealised or destroyed, da Vinci’s greatest achievements are to be found on sheets of paper.
“The drawings in the Royal Collection have been together as a to 30 his never Royal Collection Trust group since the artist’s death, and provide an unparalleled insight into his investigations and the workings of his mind.”
The exhibition in Birmingham will be accompanied by an education programme which organisers hope will help to bring da Vinci’s techniques alive for visitors, along with a series of talks and tours.
Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing runs from February 1 to May 6.
In May 2019, following the exhibitions around the UK, the drawings will be brought together to form part of an exhibition of over 200 sheets at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace – the largest exhibition of Leonardo’s work in over 65 years.