The exhibition will also feature work by Donatello, Rubens, Verrocchio, and Rustici—including Rustici’s three monumental bronzes from the façade of the Baptistery in Florence that comprise “John the Baptist Preaching to a Levite and a Pharisee,” which was recently restored and has never left Florence. The exhibition will shed new light on Leonardo’s seminal role in the development of Renaissance sculpture and the work of artists who followed him through an examination of the sculpture that Leonardo studied, the sketches and studies he created for his own sculptural projects (the majority of which were never realized), and his interactions with other Renaissance sculptors. The initial section of the exhibition, “Leonardo, Master Sculptor,” will feature drawings associated with Leonardo’s plans for other works of sculpture, including an in-depth examination of Leonardo’s plans to create the world’s largest and most technically complex statue, a work which was to depict Duke Francesco Sforza mounted on horseback. In addition to the Sforza monument, the exhibition will examine two of Leonardo’s other equestrian projects for Gian Giacomo Trivulzio and King Francis I of France through the artists’ compositional and anatomical studies as well as drawings for proportioning, modeling, and casting the enormous Sforza monument. The final section of the exhibition will also feature Giovanni Francesco Rustici’s three larger-than-life-sized bronze figures that comprise “John the Baptist Preaching to a Levite and a Pharisee,” which has been recently restored and will be shown outside of Florence for the first time.

Tags: leonardo de vinci, famous drawings, famous artist, leonardo da vinci paintings, leonardo da vinci, The Last Supper, painting artist, works of a genius