LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452 - 1509)

Upon seeing Leonardo's painting "Madonna in the Rocks", the customers were furious - what is the dirt? Where is the promised gold leaf and ultramarine? Why are there no halos over the heads of the saints? There was a conflict: the Franciscans refused to pay for the purchase of expensive paints for the painting, and Leonardo refused to give them his work for pennies. Years of litigation between the artist and the customers began.

For almost twenty years, the proceedings continued - to whom the painting of the great master should belong. In the end a compromise solution was found: the unwanted painting Leonardo left himself (it later ended up in the collection of the Louvre in Paris), and especially for the Franciscan brotherhood was written a second painting, which took into account all his wishes. It is this second painting, painted twenty years after the first version, that is in London.

The second picture "Madonna in the Rocks." 1508. National Gallery. London