A study of drapery for the seated figure of the Madonna, from the waist to the knee, showing the close folds around the right thigh. The upper part of the body, with the arms outstretched downwards, is slightly indicated. Melzi's number 219.

This is a study for Leonardo’s painting of the Madonna and Child with St Anne and a lamb, now in the Louvre. The technique is very elaborate: an outline in charcoal was worked up in closely hatched black chalk, which was gone over with a damp brush to make the modelling even smoother. Touches of brown wash provide a little colour and give greater depth to the shadows. Finally the light on the satiny surface was rendered with a veil of white heightening, delicately applied with a fine brush.

The subject of the Madonna and Child with St Anne, with either a lamb or the infant St John the Baptist, occupied Leonardo for the last two decades of his life. The original commission possibly came from the French king Louis XII after his invasion of Milan in 1499. Leonardo produced three full-size compositions, of which a cartoon (National Gallery, London) and a painting (Louvre, Paris) survive. The painting was begun around 1508 and was recorded in Leonardo’s studio in France, still in progress, in 1517.

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