vivifying influence even into regions apparently inaccessible to their action. It appears unexpectedly in artists like Bernardino Luini and Sodoma, who never had the good fortune to come into personal contact with Leonardo. But this influence did not manifest itself everywhere with identical, or equally beneficial, results. Though the Milanese sculptors recognised the supreme grace of Leonardo's creation and, to a certain extent, the difficulties that he had overcome, they had no conception of the infinite amount of detailed research and strenuous labour that went to make up the sum of his perfection. Hence it was that Milanese sculpture passed from extreme ruggedness to the facility, the polish, the sentimental insipidity so apparent in the statues and bas-reliefs of Briosco at the Certosa of Pavia, and those of Bambaja, on the famous tomb of Gaston de Foix.

Τ

HERE is no more tantalising problem

in the history of modern art than that of the classification and chronology of Leonardo da Vinci's works. One is sometimes tempted to believe that just as the master's handwriting remained absolutely unchanged for thirty-five years, making it impossible to distinguish the manuscripts of his extreme old age from those of his first literary efforts,1 so, too, his manner of drawing and painting never varied an iota throughout his career. I will not undertake to solve all the difficulties, many of them inextricable, which beset the determination of dates in a life-work of such importance as that of Leonardo. In such investigations it is impossible to show too much reserve, scepticism, and above all modesty, a virtue which is becoming extremely rare in the domain of artistic erudition. But I may claim to offer some materials for

A FIGURE FOR THE ADORATION
OF THE MAGI."

(Bonnat Collection, Paris.)

1 See M. Charles Ravaisson-Mollien's Manuscrits de Léonard de Vinci, vol. v. p. 1.

Y

the building up of a monument which no isolated efforts can hope to raise.

Successive biographers of Leonardo have fixed the date of the Virgin of the Rocks, some before his removal from Florence,1 some after his establishment at Milan; 2 in other words, some before and some after the year 1484. A recently discovered document has settled this vexed question; 3 the picture was painted at Milan.

Nevertheless, there is a vast gulf between the Louvre picture and other works painted by Leonardo at Milan; technique, style, expression, all differ. The drawing is slightly dry and hard, somewhat in the manner of Verrocchio; the crumpled draperies, the anxious, even fretful expression of the faces, are peculiarities (we dare not say faults, for such faults disarm criticism) which were soon to disappear in the master's more mature works. In a word, though it was painted at Milan, the Virgin of the Rocks is Florentine in feeling.

The picture, in spite of the impression of rapid and spontaneous creation it makes upon the spectator, was one of the most laborious of the master's works, as his drawings bear witness. A characteristic

1 Charles Clément, Müller-Walde. I myself once shared this opinion.

2 Lübke, Geschichte der italienischen Malerei, vol. ii.-A. Gruyer, Voyage autour du Salon carré du Louvre, p. 33. Paris, 1891. M. Gruyer believes the picture to have been painted at Milan, rather at the beginning than at the end of Leonardo's sojourn there. According to him, it dates from between 1482 and 1490, rather than from between 1490 and 1500.

3 Motta, Archivio storico lombardo, 1893, vol. xx., p. 972-977.-Frizzoni, Archivio storico dell' Arte, 1894, p. 58-61. The following is an abstract of this curious document : At a date unspecified, between 1484 and 1494, Giovanni Ambrogio Preda and Leonardo da Vinci agreed with the Brothers of the Chapel of the Conception of the Church of San Francesco at Milan, to execute an altar-piece ("una ancona") for them, to consist of gilded figures in relief, an oil painting of the Virgin, and two other pictures, also in oil, large figures of angels. Difficulties arose in connection with the price the two artists valued the work at 300 florins; the friars, however, declined to give more than 25 florins for the Madonna, though several amateurs had offered 100. In the petition addressed to the Duke on the subject, the artists ask that the Madonna should be left in their hands, and that the 800 lire paid them by the friars should be considered the price of the reredos and the two angels.

It must not, however, be supposed that Preda was Leonardo's collaborator in the picture. They were associated in the execution of a carved reredos with three pictures. Preda clearly produced the sculptures; he is, too, the reputed author of the two angels; and Leonardo-as this document finally establishes-painted the Madonna with his own hand.