LEONARDO DA VINCI (VINCI 1452-AMBOISE 1519)
Neptune
c.1504-5RCIN 912570
Leonardo spent most of the period 1500-08 in Florence. Among many other works, he executed a large finished drawing of the sea-god Neptune for his friend Antonio Segni, master of the papal mint. That drawing was celebrated during the sixteenth century but is now lost, and we have no certain knowledge of its appearance beyond this sketch for the composition, which carries Leonardo’s rough note to himself to ‘lower the horses’.