Hidden sketches of Leonardo see the light of day
Sketches of hands found under ultraviolet rays will go on show for the first time at Buckingham Palace
TO the human eye, they look like little more than blank, if rather old, sheets of paper. In fact, Leonardo da Vinci’s apparently empty pages hold a secret few could imagine – more than a dozen studies of hands drawn in a substance that turned to “invisible ink” over time.
The two pieces of paper, now known to be studies of the hands for the Adoration of the Magi are to go on display to the public for the first time, at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, as part of the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death. They will join more than 200 drawings for what is described as the largest exhibition of Leonardo’s work in more than 65 years.
The Royal Collection Trust, which owns the works, has announced that the anniversary will be marked with simultaneous exhibitions across the UK featuring his “treasures”, in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Southampton and Sunderland, and a 12th city still to be announced.
The centuries-old works are fragile and only permitted to go on show in the light at rare intervals, making the exhibition the “one and only chance” in many people’s lifetimes that they will see them, according to curators.
The Leonardo drawings, bound into a single album by Pompeo Leoni, the sculptor, in Milan around 1590, entered the Royal Collection during the reign of Charles II. The pictures lurking within the “blank” pages in the collection have been known to scholars for some time, after experts noticed the paper had indentations.
In the 20th century, when science had caught up with their hunch, the works were examined under ultraviolet light, revealing the astonishingly detailed work on hands.
The two sheets of paper will now go on display, next to a photograph of the infrared image revealing the hands.
With the exhibition coming up, experts have turned their attentions to learning more about why the images have disappeared, discovering it was down to the material they were drawn in. A spokesman said: “What appear to be two completely blank sheets of paper from this album will be on public display for the first time at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace.
“Examination in ultraviolet light has revealed these sheets to be studies of hands for the Adoration of the Magi, and among Leonardo’s most beautiful drawings. Leonardo executed the studies of hands in metalpoint, which involves drawing with a metal stylus on prepared paper.
“One of the sheets was examined at the UK’S national synchrotron, the Diamond Light Source at Harwell, Oxford- shire, using high-energy X-ray fluorescence to map the distribution of chemical elements on the paper.
“It was discovered that the drawings had become invisible to the naked eye because of the high copper content in the stylus that Leonardo used – the metallic copper had reacted over time to become a transparent copper salt.”
Leonardo da Vinci: A Life In Drawing will give the “widest-ever UK audience the opportunity to see the work” in
‘Leonardo drew incessantly throughout his life, not just to prepare artistic projects but to spawn ideas’
February next year, with its curators hoping up to one million visitors will view shows around the country.
Martin Clayton, the head of prints and drawings at the Royal Collection Trust, said: “None of Leonardo’s scientific work was ever published and, of his artistic work, only about 20 paintings survive today. But the common link to all his work was drawing.
“Leonardo drew incessantly throughout his life, not just to prepare his artistic projects but to spawn ideas, record observations and to test his theories on every subject under the sun.”
Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing opens in the UK on Feb 1 2019, before moving to the Queen’s Gallery, London, on May 24 and to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, on Nov 22