Press Release

Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452–1519) was a deeply influential painter, sculptor, architect, engineer (military, civil, and aeronautical), inventor, anatomist, cartographer, theoretician, and musician. We are still only beginning to comprehend some of his discoveries and achievements from the surviving pages of his handwritten notes and drawings. This display of the Getty’s two rare Leonardo drawings marks five hundred years since the artist’s death on May 2, 1519, at age sixty-seven, in Cloux, France. Incorporating draft studies for paintings, sculpture, machinery, and human physiognomy, along with his characteristic “mirror-writing,” the two sheets present a fascinating glimpse into the mind of this celebrated Renaissance polymath.