Studies of horses, full length, in profile to the right with the off fore-leg raised. The drawing in the lower section includes a rider with his arm outstretched and holding a baton. In the top right corner is a geometrical diagram. Melzi's number 12.

Late in life Leonardo planned a third equestrian monument, following on from the abandoned monument to Francesco Sforza (see RCIN 912357, 912358) and the unexecuted Trivulzio monument (RCIN 912353, 912355, 912356). It appears that this drawing is a design for a monument to Francis I, King of France (1515-47), at whose court Leonardo was employed.

The upper horse has a pacing gait, with both legs on the same side advanced, an unnatural movement for which horses must be trained. This is the pose of Donatello’s Gattamelata and Verrocchio’s Colleoni, and would have indicated to a contemporary, much more aware of horsemanship than we are, the qualities of culture and control. But in a sculpture this pose requires the advanced rear leg to be grounded or supported, to stabilise the monument; Leonardo usually preferred the natural walk, with diagonally-opposed legs grounded (as in the central study) to balance the monument. The lower study is one of Leonardo’s most ingenious solutions to the problem of stability – as the rider reins in the horse, which seems to recoil from a dog yapping beneath its raised front hoof, most of the weight is taken on the rear legs.

Text adapted from Leonardo da Vinci: A life in drawing, London, 2018