The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne

Leonardo worked on the theme of Saint Anne for about twenty years. A cartoon he showed in Florence in 1501 drew crowds, according to Vasari. This painting rearranges the group into a single slope of figures descending from Anne to the child and lamb.

The child holds the lamb, a symbol of his sacrifice. Mary reaches to pull him back, and Anne watches, smiling, as if accepting what must happen. Behind them rise mountains drawn from his studies of the Alps, pale and blue.

The painting was still in his studio in France in 1517, when the Cardinal of Aragon's secretary Antonio de Beatis saw it. The Louvre completed a careful cleaning in 2012.