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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 ©
This exhibition is in the past. View our current exhibitions.

Explore Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing: Nationwide

      • This event is in the past
        Daily (Friday 1 Feb 2019 - Sunday 5 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:

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

      Selected works

        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

        Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing

        Publication
        Leonardo da Vinci: A Closer Look

        Scientific analysis of Leonardo's drawings

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

        Explore 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 from the divinely beautiful to the grotesquely ugly.

        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
        Inside the amazing mind of Leonardo da Vinci: Children's activity banner
        Inside the amazing mind of Leonardo da Vinci
        Have a Heart
        The dancing skeleton: Children's activity banner
        The Dancing Skeleton

        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
        Martin Clayton looking at a Leonardo da Vinci drawing in the Print Room at Windsor Castle
        Film: The Life of Leonardo da Vinci
        The Prince of Wales
        The Prince of Wales's introduction to Leonardo da Vinci exhibition
        Leonardo da Vinci's life
        Royal Collection curator looking at reproductions of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings
        Film: Recreating Leonardo da Vinci's Signature
        Leonardo da Vinci school resource booklet front cover
        School Resources
        Quick Links
        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.