Give the Queen a big hand... Palace will show hidden Leonardo works
A HIDDEN masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci will go on show at Buckingham Palace to mark the 500th anniversary of his death.
The work, part of the royal collection, has been uncovered using X-ray technology. Experts examined an album of drawings, which was brought into the collection by Charles II, and found that two apparently blank sheets were actually studies of hands for Leonardo’s 1481 masterpiece The Adoration Of The Magi, which hangs in the Uffizi gallery in Florence.
One of the sheets was examined at the Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire — the UK’s equivalent of the Large Hadron Collider.
Using X-ray fluorescence scanning it revealed the sketches had been created using a technique called metalpoint — on specially prepared paper with a copper stylus. Over the years they had become faded but were revealed again when exposed to ultraviolet light.
The sketches, which are being kept together and treated as one work of art, will go on public display for the first time at the Queen’s Gallery, following a UK tour during which more than 100 other works will tour a dozen galleries and museums.
Martin Clayton, head of prints and drawings at the Royal Collection Trust, said: “The drawings of Leonardo da Vinci are a national treasure, both incredibly beautiful and the main source of our knowledge of the artist.
“We hope that as many people as possible across the UK will take this unique opportunity to see these extraordinary works, which allow us to enter one of the greatest minds in history, and to understand the man and his achievements.”
The Queen’s Gallery exhibition will include more than 200 pieces and be the largest public display of Leonardo’s work in more than 65 years. There are more than 550 sheets of sketches in the Royal Collection which are kept in carefully controlled conditions at Windsor Castle and are never put on permanent display in order to preserve them.
Leonardo, who died aged 67 in 1519, is regarded as one of the greatest painters of all time as well as a genius whose talents extended to architecture, science and design.
One of his works — Salvator Mundi — became the most expensive painting ever sold when it went for £335 million at auction last year.
Leonardo da Vinci: A Life In
Drawing runs from May 24 2019 to October 13.
Whiteread gets art brief at old college
ONE of Britain’s leading artists will return to her former university and create a sculpture to form the centrepiece of its new building.
Turner Prize winner Rachel Whiteread will sculpt a piece of art to sit in University College London’s new multi-million-pound student centre.
Whiteread, a former student at UCL Slade School of Fine Art, won the £35,000 commission to create the artwork, which may take the form of a sculpture that hangs on a wall visible from the street. The student centre will be open to the public.
Whiteread said: “My time at the Slade was enormously important in my development as an artist, and I hope I can inspire future generations.”