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.