Between 1500, when he returned for a time to Florence, and 1516, when he left Italy for France, Leonardo's life was unsettled. In 1502-03 and in 1506-13 he was based in Milan, in 1513 he moved to Rome, but the artistic activity of his later years was chiefly centred in Florence in the years 1500-06. From this time dates his portrait of Mona Lisa, his most famous work, which is as well known for its mastery of technical innovations as for the mysteriousness of its legendary smiling subject. In Florence also Leonardo worked out variations on a theme that fascinated him at this time and presented a great challenge to his skill in composing closely knit groups of figures. This was the Virgin and Child with St Anne, known today mainly through a painting in the Louvre, Paris and the incomparably beautiful cartoon in the National Gallery, London.
Leonardo did little artistic work in the last decade of his life, the last paintings from his hand generally being accepted are two pictures of St John (one later converted into a Bacchus), both in the Louvre.
Summary of works by Leonardo |
Paintings |
early work | in the 1480s | in the 1490s | late work | copies |
Studies to paintings |
Battle of Anghiari | studies (1) | studies (2) | heads | various |
Other studies |
anatomy | nature | engineering | maps | architecture | sculpture |