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LEONARDO DA VINCI (VINCI 1452-AMBOISE 1519)

Cats, lions, and a dragon

c.1517-18

RCIN 912363

Leonardo ranges from closely-observed drawings of cats sleeping, grooming and fighting, to lions remembered from caged animals he would have seen in Italy, to a coiling dragon. He had considered writing a treatise on the movement of animals, and below the drawings he states ‘The lion is prince of this animal species because of the flexibility of its spine’.
  • watermark: Bird in a circle. Close to Briquet 12219. (Bird in a circle, Cod. Arun., ff 131-132) [-]


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