This copy is usually ascribed to Marco d'Oggiono, but some critics
claim that it is by Gianpetrino. It is the same size as the original.]



THE VIRGIN OF THE ROCKS


The "Virgin of the Rocks" (Plate III.), now in the National Gallery,
corresponds exactly with a painting by Leonardo which was described by
Lomazzo about 1584 as being in the Chapel of the Conception in the
Church of St. Francesco at Milan. This picture, the only _oeuvre_
in this gallery with which Leonardo's name can be connected, was
brought to England in 1777 by Gavin Hamilton, and sold by him to the
Marquess of Lansdowne, who subsequently exchanged it for another
picture in the Collection of the Earl of Suffolk at Charlton Park,
Wiltshire, from whom it was eventually purchased by the National
Gallery for L9000. Signor Emilio Motta, some fifteen years ago,
unearthed in the State Archives of Milan a letter or memorial from
Giovanni Ambrogio da Predis and Leonardo da Vinci to the Duke of
Milan, praying him to intervene in a dispute, which had arisen between
the petitioners and the Brotherhood of the Conception, with regard to
the valuation of certain works of art furnished for the chapel of the
Brotherhood in the church of St. Francesco. The only logical deduction
which can be drawn from documentary evidence is that the "Vierge aux
Rochers" in the Louvre is the picture, painted about 1482, which
between 1491 and 1494 gave rise to the dispute, and that, when it was
ultimately sold by the artists for the full price asked to some
unknown buyer, the National Gallery version was executed for a