All I know about this drawing of “The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and John the Baptist” I learned from George Bothamley, who posted the picture on his site Art Every Day. He tells us that it is the largest drawing we have from Leonardo Da Vinci, and we don’t know if he ever completed a painting based on it. On second thought, I do know something that Bothamley couldn’t teach me, just by looking at it with my own eyes and being captivated by the image, which to me is full of joy.
Bothamley explains that the cartoon is “Widely known as ‘The Burlington House Cartoon’ due to it once being the most prominent artwork in the collection in Burlington House at London’s Royal Academy.”
You can read the rest of what he said about it: here.
Gladsome Lights 
Oh to be able to convey such grace and emotion with strokes of one’s pencil!
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Doesn’t it seem like it would be the Virgin and Child with St. Elizabeth and John the Baptist? Two mothers with sons almost the same age… one old, one young. I guess it can be whoever he meant it to be, but the timing would be “not of this world.”
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Oh, you probably are referring to what I said about “what I saw with my own eyes.” I only meant that the writer whom I quoted couldn’t be the source of my *experiential* knowledge. But when I first saw the drawing I think I did guess at the identity of the subject before I saw the title.
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I was meaning that St. Anne, as the Virgin’s mother, had passed away already at that point (according to tradition) and so it was very surprising to me to see Mary with her mother in that picture – I could see how it could be St. Elizabeth, because she went to Elizabeth after the Annunciation, when St. John leaped in the womb, and the two of them were able to see each other. And I meant that (spiritually) it might be St. Anne – but sort of “in the heavens” because of the chronology.
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Oh yes! Thank you for helping me to see even more in the image, that timeless feature, as in icons people and events from different chronos times are combined, acknowledging kairos.
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A year later, I read this interchange between you and me, Mat. Beth, and you know what, I’m pretty sure that back then the title did not even register with me. I read “St Anne” but thought “Elizabeth” because of just what you point out; having Elizabeth in the drawing makes much more sense. I must have been in a hurry, too, and I can see that I was writing on my phone, so the whole thing was above my IQ level.
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what a talented man he was.
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This cartoon is in London’s National Gallery. I first heard of it in an art history class in college and on my first trip to England in 1973, it was the one thing I put on my list I had to see “in person.” I was not disappointed. It was magnificent. I’ve seen it on every trip since and it never ceases to draw me in, almost in a trance. When watching Ken Burns’ recent special on Leonardo, they not only showed this but a full-on painting that is very similar, but of course, more colorful and I suspect this was his inspiration for that. I have to say, I loved this one even more with those sepia tones. It feels more sacred to me.
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