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Tavola Doria

Leonardo da Vinci

1503

oil

panel

From the collection of Uffizi Gallery

High Renaissance Renaissance History Painting

Dominant colour

About this work

This painting depicts a chaotic scene of men on horseback, engaged in battle. The horses are white and brown, with their legs raised in motion. The men are dressed in various attire, including helmets, armor, and red hats. They wield swords and lances, with some falling to the ground. In the midst of the chaos, a man in a red hat and white shirt is shown riding a brown horse, holding a sword aloft. Another man, dressed in armor, lies on the ground, his helmet askew. The painting's use of chiaroscuro creates a sense of depth and drama, drawing the viewer's eye to the center of the action. To learn more about the artist behind this work, explore the art of Leonardo da Vinci.

The story of this work

Overview

La Tavola Doria is a painting depicting the central part of the famous mural painting of the Battle of Anghiari by Leonardo Da Vinci, created between 1503 and 1505. The artist is unknown and is widely believed to be a copy of a 16th-century Tuscan artist, perhaps Poppi. A 2013 article suggests the name Giovanni Francesco Rustici. In Leonardo's sketches for the Battle of Anghiari, the weapons used do not include daggers, knives, or small, common bladed weapons, but only extremely long spears, which are essential in establishing the composition and background of the work. These spears are…

Source: wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

The painting in the 20th century

In 1939, it was put up for auction by the Doria family, who had owned it since 1621. The work was protected by a decree of the Royal Superintendency of the Galleries of Naples, but in 1940, it left Naples and from then on all traces of it were lost. It reappeared in Munich in the 1960s, a town known for having served as a hiding place for works looted by the Nazis from Jewish families. There, scholar Carlo Pedretti took on the task of studying the painting in depth. He was the first to publish colour images of the painting, in 1968. Pedretti also began to exchange letters with the owner of…

Read the full account in the museum source.

Source: wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.