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Exhibition

Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing

A nationwide celebration during 2019

Leonardo da Vinci
Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci attributed to Francesco Melzi ©
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OTHER VENUES
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery [Birmingham] Leeds Art Gallery [Leeds] Southampton City Art Gallery [Southampton] Millennium Gallery [Sheffield] Bristol Museum & Art Gallery [Bristol] Ulster Museum [Belfast] Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum [Glasgow] National Museum of Wales [Cardiff] Derby Museum and Art Gallery [Derby] Walker Art Gallery [Liverpool] Manchester City Art Gallery [Manchester] Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens [Sunderland] The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace The Queen's Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse
  • Daily (Friday, 1 Feb 2019 - Monday, 6 May 2019)

144 of Leonardo da Vinci’s greatest drawings in the Royal Collection are displayed in 12 simultaneous exhibitions across the UK to mark the 500th anniversary of his death.

Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing features 12 drawings at each venue, all selected to reflect the full range of Leonardo's interests – painting, sculpture, architecture, music, anatomy, engineering, cartography, geology and botany.

In May over 200 drawings will go on display at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, and then the exhibition will move to The Queen's Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse in November.

Watch the exhibition trailer:

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Our partner venues

Learn more about the exhibitions across the UK

For Leonardo's skull studies of 1489, see RCIN 919059. The cranium studied on the recto is in the same section as in the upper drawing of 919057r, with the floor of the cranial cavity tilted a little further towards the viewer. Again, the site of the sen
Ulster Museum, Belfast

Leonardo's anatomical studies were far ahead of his time

A coloured plan of a weir in the Arno two miles east of Florence, showing damage to the embankment caused by the flow of water through the weir, with notes in conventional (not mirror) writing. Melzi's number 168. This exquisite map dates from a per
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Leonardo's maps were produced for a number of projects

<p>A sheet of more than twenty drawings of cats and lions in a wide variety of positions; lying asleep, sitting, prowling, playing, fighting, and in one case frightened, standing with humped back and fur standing on end; in the lower half, drawn at an odd
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery

Studies connected to Leonardo's treatise on the movements of animals

A drawing of a dramatic flood in which the atmosphere above a wooded hill has materialised in a gigantic explosion, with jets of water shooting out from the centre. Square blocks of stone topple and fall from the sky. Above is a dark cloud from which jets
National Museum Cardiff

The subject of a cataclysmic storm was one of Leonardo's favourites at the end of his life

Various sketches of the head of a woman: on the right is a sketch of the head turned to the left, looking down three quarters left, with the hair elaborately coiled and braided. Beneath this is a drawing of a head seen from the back. On the left are three
Derby Museum and Art Gallery

The range of Leonardo's works include these studies for the head of Leda

A study of a Star of Bethlehem with starry flowers and long, thin, twisted leaves. To the left are leaves of crowsfoot, and to the right, wood anemone. Behind, to the right, are grasses. Below is a tall spray of sun spurge in bloom, and individual drawing
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

Leonardo produced fine botanical studies for his now destroyed Leda and the Swan

Recto: a study of a nude figure on a horse, rearing in profile to the left. A prostrate foe lies beneath the horse's raised fore-feet. Verso: rough drawings of walls; equilateral triangles; a wave; a crossbow; water falling from a pipe; a wheel in a box;
Leeds Art Gallery

This sketch comes from Leonardo's monument to Francesco Sforza

A drawing of the head of a woman turned three quarters to the left, looking down. The hair is fastened in elaborate braids, and arranged in coils over the ears. This is a study for the head of Leda in the lost painting of <em>Leda and the Swan</em>.<br> <
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

This study for the painting of Leda comes from the end of Leonardo's life

A drawing of the head of a young man turned in profile to the right. He has heavy classical features, and masses of curly hair. Melzi's number 34. Early in his career Leonardo fixed on two standard male types, who recur repeatedly in his drawings and pai
Manchester Art Gallery

Many of these male studies were produced for Leonardo's own satisfaction

Water obsessed Leonardo throughout his life. His earliest dated drawing, of 1473, is a landscape showing a river cascading over rocks and streaming away down a valley; his final sheets, forty-five years later, are haunted by visions of deluges destroying
Millennium Gallery, Sheffield

Studies of water were a recurring theme in Leonardo's work

This drawing shows a number of designs for gun-barrels, and mortars intended to discharge an incendiary substance known as ‘Greek fire’, to burn the rigging and sails of enemy ships. The largest drawing, at the bottom of the sheet, shows
Southampton City Art Gallery

Leonardo's interest in science and technology blossomed in Milan

A large, formal drawing showing how a fortress wall may be breached and the bailey within subdued. Four mortars outside the walls rain stones into the fortress, while a section of wall has been undermined and has fallen into an inner ditch. Cannon placed
Sunderland Museum and Winter Garden

Leonardo also worked on tactics as well as formal projects

Selected works

Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)

The head of Leda

Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)

A deluge

Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)

Cats, lions, and a dragon

Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)

Studies of a baby
Explore the exhibition

Leonardo books

Explore the works of Leonardo further with these books from the Royal Collection

Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing book cover
Publication
Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing

Accompanies the major exhibition in 2019
Publication
Leonardo da Vinci: A Closer Look

Scientific analysis of Leonardo's drawings

Cover for Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist
Publication
Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist

87 of the finest of Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical studies

D&G book cover
Publication
Leonardo da Vinci: The Divine and the Grotesque

Leonardo's studies of physiognomy

Explore all Royal Collection publications

Leonardo Interactives

In these fun interactives you will not only discover Leonardo the artist, but also Leonardo the engineer, scientist and anatomist
Face Facts

Learn about the rules Leonardo used when drawing the head and face

Inside the amazing mind of Leonardo da Vinci: Children's activity banner
Inside the amazing mind of Leonardo da Vinci

Find out about what went on inside the head of Leonardo da Vinci
Have a Heart

Learn about Leonardo's discoveries about the human heart with this interactive.

The dancing skeleton: Children's activity banner
The Dancing Skeleton

Leonardo was fascinated with the movements of the body. This interactive explores the body's movements while dancing.

Learn more about Leonardo

Explore the life of Leonardo with these films, learning resources and timeline

Paints and pigments
Film: Leonardo da Vinci's Drawing Materials

Watch this film to learn more about the materials that Leonardo da Vinci used to produce his magnificent drawings

Martin Clayton looking at a Leonardo da Vinci drawing in the Print Room at Windsor Castle
Film: The Life of Leonardo da Vinci

Watch this short film to learn more about the life of one of history's greatest thinkers

The Prince of Wales
The Prince of Wales's introduction to Leonardo da Vinci exhibition

The Prince of Wales introduces the Leonardo da Vinci exhibitions
Leonardo da Vinci's life

This timeline charts the life of Leonardo da Vinci

Royal Collection curator looking at reproductions of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings
Film: Recreating Leonardo da Vinci's Signature

Watch this short film to find out what Leonardo's signature may have looked like

Leonardo da Vinci school resource booklet front cover
School Resources

Resource pack of activities that apply Leonardo's ideas and works across diverse subjects

Find Related themes

Subjects: Drawings
Artists: Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Map & directions

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Official Royal Residences

The income from your ticket contributes directly to The Royal Collection Trust, a registered charity. The aims of The Royal Collection Trust are the care and conservation of the Royal Collection, and the promotion of access and enjoyment through exhibitions, publications, loans and educational activities.