In 1500 Leonardo was back again in Florence

In 1500 Leonardo was back again in Florence, and his next important work was the designing, though probably not the actual painting, of the beautiful picture in the Louvre, The Virgin and Child with S. Anne, the commission for which had been given to Filippino Lippi, but resigned by him on Leonardo's return. In 1501 Isabella d'Este wrote to know whether Leonardo was still in Florence, and what he was doing,oil paintings for sale, as she wished him to paint a picture for her in the palace at Mantua, and in the reply of the Vicar-General of the Carmelites we have a valuable account of the artist and his work. "As far as I can gather," he writes, "the life of Leonardo is extremely variable and undetermined. Since his arrival here he has only made a sketch in a cartoon. It represents a Christ as a little child of about a year old, reaching forward out of his mother's arms towards a lamb. The mother,abstract oil painting, half rising from the lap of S. Anne, catches at the child as though to take it away from the lamb, the animal of sacrifice signifying the Passion. S. Anne, also rising a little from her seat, seems to wish to restrain her daughter from separating the child from the lamb; which perhaps is intended to signify the Church, that would not wish that the Passion of Christ should be hindered. These figures are as large as life, but they are all contained in a small cartoon,art oil paintings online, since all of them sit or are bent; the figure of the Virgin is somewhat in front of the other, turned towards the left. This sketch is not yet finished. He has not executed39 any other work, except that his two assistants paint portraits and he, at times, lends a hand to one or another of them. He gives profound study to geometry, and grows most impatient of painting."
The history of this cartoon—as indeed of the Louvre picture—is somewhat obscure, but it is certain that the beautiful cartoon of the same subject in the possession of the Royal Academy is not the one above described. cheap oil paintings for sale