LEONARDO da Vinci
(b. 1452, Vinci, d. 1519, Cloux, near Amboise)

Study for the Trivulzio Equestrian Monument

1508-10
Pen and ink on paper, 280 x 198 mm
Royal Library, Windsor

Leonardo was not known as a sculptor, yet he trained in Verrocchio's shop where he would have participated in sculptural commissions. In 1482 he offered to undertake an equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza. The offer was accepted but the monument was not realized. In 1516 he re-used his earlier ideas on an equestrian memorial to the condottiere Trivulzio. He made several drawings but once again the design came to naught.

This drawing is probably quite rightly identified with the tomb of Marshal Giovanni Giacomo Trivulzio, though there is no record that Leonardo was commissioned to produce such a work. It shows the same design for the horse and rider as the first version of the Sforza Equestrian Monument, but in this instance the dynamic solution has been abandoned in favour of a walking pace.