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OF LEONARDO DA VINCI.
lxxvii

DRAWINGS.

Vasari, p. 24, says, that it was Leonardo’s practice to model figures from the life, and then to cover them with fine thin lawn or cambric, so as to be able to see through it, and with the point of a fine pencil to trace off the outlines in black and white; and that some such drawings he had in his collection.

A head in chiaro oscuro, in the possession of Vasari, and mentioned by him as divine, a drawing on paper[1].

A carton of Adam and Eve in Paradise, made by him for the King of Portugal. It is done with a pen in chiaro oscuro, and heightened with white, and was intended to be worked as tapestry in silk and gold; but Vasari says it was never executed, and that in his time the carton remained at Florence, in the house of Ottaviano de Medici. Whether this carton is still existing is unknown [2].

Several ridiculous heads of men and women, formerly in Vasari’s collection, drawn in pen and ink [3]. Aurelio Lovino had, says Lomazzo, a book of sketches by Leonardo, of odd and ridiculous heads. This book appears to have contained about 250 figures of countrymen and countrywomen laughing,

  1. Vasari, 24.
  2. Vasari, 26.
  3. Vasari, 29.
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