The Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci (about 1491/2-9 and 1506-8)

Catalogue Identification

The National Gallery, London records the painting known as 'The Virgin of the Rocks' as the work of Leonardo da Vinci, painted about 1491/2-9 and 1506-8. Two ranges of dates are given, which the catalogue presents as one span for the making of the picture, so the object date and the catalogue date are not the same thing: the panel belongs to the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, while the catalogue formulation of 'about 1491/2-9 and 1506-8' is the National Gallery's own way of registering that the work was made across more than one campaign. The medium and support are oil on wood, with poplar identified as the wood, and the panel's dimensions are 189.5 by 120 centimetres. The National Gallery records the inscription summary simply as 'Inscribed', without further detail in the supplied record. The painting retains a fifteenth-century Italian frame with later additions, so the present framing is not wholly original to any single moment of the panel's history.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Key facts, Details; Details, Inscription summary)

Leonardo da Vinci painted 'The Virgin of the Rocks', about 1491/2-9 and 1506-8.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The National Gallery records the inscription summary for the painting as 'Inscribed'.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The recorded composition and setting

Visual observation

The panel's recorded composition centres on an act of adoration rather than a narrative episode. The Virgin Mary appears with Saint John the Baptist, identified as Christ's cousin, and an angel; all three kneel to adore the infant Christ, who raises his hand to bless them. The figures are crowded together in a grotto overhung with rocks and dense with vegetation, and this sheltered foreground is set against a rocky landscape with a distant lake and blue hills beyond. The setting therefore divides the image into a dark, enclosed place of encounter and an opened, distant terrain that the National Gallery's account treats as part of the painting's meaning rather than as neutral scenery.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Overview; Overview, In-depth)

Within that group the spatial and gestural hierarchy is carefully arranged. Mary is the highest figure. She kneels at the centre with her arm around the shoulders of the toddler John the Baptist, who kneels beside her on the left; her head turns to gaze down at him, while her other arm is held out palm down in a protective gesture above the infant Christ on the right. Christ sits with his legs crossed in front of him in profile, his right hand raised in a blessing motion toward John and his left arm down by his side balancing him. The angel kneels behind Christ to the right, putting a steadying hand in the small of his back and facing into the group with downcast eyes that, in the National Gallery's description, add to the serenity. Read together, the protective hand, the blessing hand and the steadying hand form a chain of contact that binds the four figures into one devotional unit.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., In-depth)

Light, halo and colour in the grotto

Light and halo are distributed unequally across the group, and this difference is itself part of the visible design. A shaft of light from the top left corner moulds the figures so that they glow. All but the angel have thin gold rings as halos, shown as ellipses above each head. The angel is thus distinguished from the three haloed figures both by the absence of that attribute and, in the low light of the cave, by the way the surrounding darkness is handled. The same low light governs colour: the ultramarine blue of the Virgin's dress and cloak appears a deep, rich colour, with flashes of gold lining an orange ochre. These are the colours as the National Gallery describes them in the painting's darkened setting, and the account links the impression of glow and depth to the light source rather than treating colour as independent of it.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., In-depth)

The composition shows the Virgin Mary with Saint John the Baptist, Christ's cousin, and an angel; all kneel to adore the infant Christ, who in turn raises his hand to bless them.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The figures are crowded in a grotto overhung with rocks and dense with vegetation, set against a rocky landscape with a distant lake and blue hills beyond.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

Mary is the highest figure; she kneels in the centre with her arm around the shoulders of the toddler John the Baptist kneeling beside her on the left, her head turned to gaze down at him, and her other arm held out palm down in a protective gesture above the infant Christ on the right.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The infant Christ sits with his legs crossed in front of him in profile, his right hand raised in a blessing motion toward John the Baptist and his left arm down by his side balancing him.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

An angel kneels behind Christ to the right, putting a steadying hand in the small of his back, facing into the group with downcast eyes that add to the serenity.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

A shaft of light from the top left corner moulds the figures so they glow; all but the angel have thin gold rings as halos, shown as ellipses above each head.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

In the low light of the cave the ultramarine blue of the Virgin's dress and cloak appears a deep, rich colour, with flashes of gold lining an orange ochre.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

Commission and Doctrine

The National Gallery's catalogue identifies NG1093, Leonardo da Vinci's 'The Virgin of the Rocks', as part of a large, elaborate altarpiece made for the church of San Francesco Grande in Milan, its purpose being to celebrate the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. The doctrinal content of that dedication is stated explicitly by the National Gallery: the painting is concerned with a controversial idea that emerged in the twelfth century and was championed by the Franciscans, namely that Mary was free of sin and conceived by God before creation itself. The institutional setting and the theological programme therefore belong together in any account of why the panel was made: an altarpiece for a Milanese church, promoting a contested devotional position advanced within the Franciscan tradition.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Overview; In-depth)

Leonardo's route to that commission is documented in the National Gallery's account. He began his painting career in Florence, but in the early 1480s he offered his services to Milan's ruling family, the Sforzas, and while in Milan received the commission to paint 'The Virgin of the Rocks'. The panel is further documented as replacing a similar picture Leonardo had made earlier, now in the Louvre, Paris. These two facts establish the relationship between the London panel and the Louvre version as one of substitution within an ongoing commission rather than an isolated pair of coincidental variants, though the evidence supplied here does not set out the contractual disputes or the archival documents that would flesh out the terms of the commission itself.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., In-depth; Overview)

Reception and Significance

Interpretation

Reading the doctrinal programme, the visual evidence and the provenance together clarifies what kind of object this is. It was made for a specific Milanese devotion, it replaced an earlier treatment of the same subject by the same artist, and it later entered the English art market through an institutional sale and a dealer, passing through named collections with recorded sightings. The Franciscan doctrine of Mary's freedom from sin and conception before creation supplies the reason the panel existed; the museum's own interpretive suggestion links that doctrine to the pre-human rocky setting; and the survival of so few of Leonardo's large-scale painted works is why the panel carries weight in histories of Italian painting. The attribution of interpretive force to the setting remains a curatorial reading, while the commission, the substitution of this panel for the earlier picture and the documented movements of the object are reported as documented facts.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Overview; In-depth; Overview, In-depth; Provenance)

The painting was part of a large, elaborate altarpiece made for the church of San Francesco Grande, Milan, to celebrate the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The painting replaced a similar picture Leonardo made earlier, now in the Louvre, Paris.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

Leonardo began his painting career in Florence, but in the early 1480s he offered his services to Milan's ruling family, the Sforzas, and while in Milan received the commission to paint 'The Virgin of the Rocks'.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The National Gallery explains that the painting is concerned with a controversial idea which emerged in the twelfth century and was championed by the Franciscans: that Mary was free of sin and conceived by God before creation itself.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

Support, medium and dimensions

The National Gallery records the physical constitution of its Virgin of the Rocks (NG1093) as oil on wood, with poplar identified as the species of the panel. The same catalogue entry gives the panel's dimensions as 189.5 by 120 centimetres. A separate institutional record, the Wikimedia Commons file documenting a photographic reproduction of the National Gallery painting, independently states the medium as oil on poplar wood and repeats the dimensions of 189.5 by 120 centimetres, while adding the qualification that the panel is cradled. That word belongs to the later structural history of the object rather than to its original making: a cradle is a secondary reinforcing framework applied to a panel, and the Commons record is the only supplied unit that attests to it. The Commons file itself is described as a faithful photographic reproduction of the painting held by the National Gallery, London, with the original file measuring 2,813 by 4,226 pixels, a detail of the digital surrogate rather than of the panel. The two records therefore agree on medium, wood species and dimensions, and their only difference is the Commons record's added note about cradling, which no other supplied unit corroborates.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Details, Medium and support; Details, Dimensions)(commons.wikimedia.org, n.d., Summary)

The painted surface is set within a fifteenth-century Italian frame that has later additions, according to the National Gallery's frame entry. The dating and the division between original and added elements are the institution's, and the supplied evidence does not specify what those additions are or when they were made. The frame is thus documented as an assemblage of periods rather than as a single unified object, and its fifteenth-century portion places the framing within the same Italian milieu as the panel's making, while the later additions belong to an unspecified subsequent history of the object.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Details, Frame)

Documented technique: sfumato and chiaroscuro

The National Gallery describes the painting's technique as innovative, and explains its purpose as producing the impression that the figures emerge from the darkness of the shaded setting. The specific operation it identifies is the blurring of the edges of the figures' forms in order to indicate the shadows enveloping them. This is presented as a technique observable in the finished painting and as an account of Leonardo's intention in using it; the institution's language attributes the innovation to the artist and locates its effect in the relation between figure and dark ground. The same source states that instead of linear or mathematical perspective, Leonardo explored subtler ways of depicting distance through colour, focus, and light and dark, an approach it names as chiaroscuro. The supplied evidence does not report any technical imaging that would independently verify how these transitions were built up in paint; the account of edge blurring and of distance through colour and tonality rests on the National Gallery's description of the picture's appearance and of the artist's method.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Overview, In-depth; In-depth)

The National Gallery supplies a vocabulary for the optical effects it describes. The combined effects of colour, focus, and light and dark are termed chiaroscuro, and the blurring of edges where forms curve into shade is called sfumato, a word derived from the Italian verb meaning to turn to smoke. The two terms are not interchangeable in this account: chiaroscuro names the broader system by which distance and volume are conveyed through tonal and colour relationships in place of linear or mathematical perspective, while sfumato names the specific softening of contours at the transitions where forms pass into shadow. The etymology the source gives is offered as an explanation of the term's sense rather than as a description of pigment or medium, and no supplied unit reports the number of layers, the sequence of application, or any glazing or blending method by which the sfumato transitions were physically produced.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., In-depth)

Underdrawing and design change

Technical examination

The National Gallery's technical account of the London panel begins with the underdrawing, which the gallery reports shows that Leonardo attempted a different design but later changed his mind. The consequence the gallery draws from that change is compositional: the finished picture is almost identical to the earlier version now in the Louvre, Paris, which this painting replaced for the Milanese altarpiece. The wording matters for how the finding should be weighed. What is reported is a divergence between an earlier design and the final surface, inferred from the preparatory drawing; the sameness with the Louvre picture is a comparison between two finished compositions, not a claim that the underdrawing itself reproduces the Louvre design. Read together, the two statements place the London panel within a longer commission history in which a first conception was revised toward the arrangement already familiar from the earlier picture, and they make the drawing layer the only direct trace of the abandoned design. No date is given here for when the change was made, and the evidence does not specify the medium of the underdrawing or the method by which it was examined.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Overview)

Leonardo has used innovative painting techniques to give the impression that the figures are emerging from the darkness of the shaded setting; for example, he blurred the edges of their forms to indicate the shadows that envelop them.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

Rather than using linear or mathematical perspective, Leonardo explored subtler ways of depicting distance through colour, focus, light and dark, known as chiaroscuro.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The effects of colour, focus, light and dark are described as chiaroscuro, and the blurring of edges where forms curve into shade is called sfumato, from the Italian verb meaning 'to turn to smoke'.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The painting has a fifteenth-century Italian frame with later additions.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The painting's medium and support are oil on wood, with poplar identified.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The panel's dimensions are 189.5 by 120 centimetres.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The Wikimedia Commons record gives the painting's medium as oil on poplar wood (cradled panel), with dimensions of 189.5 by 120 centimetres.(commons.wikimedia.org, n.d.)

Technical examination

The underdrawing shows that Leonardo attempted a different design but later changed his mind, so the composition is almost identical to the Louvre version.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

From the Altarpiece to the Market

The documented sequence of ownership begins with a removal and a sale. According to the National Gallery, the panel was removed from San Francesco Grande to the Hospital of Santa Caterina alla Ruota, and it was sold by that latter institution in 1785 to Gavin Hamilton, who brought it to England. It was then seen in England by C. J. Greville on 24 December 1785, so within the same year of the sale the picture was both in Hamilton's hands in Britain and being viewed there by a documented observer. The transfer from the church to the hospital is stated without a date in the supplied material, and the account does not specify the terms, the reason or the authority under which the removal occurred; what is documented is the institutional move and the subsequent sale by Santa Caterina alla Ruota in 1785. The move to England matters because it marks the point at which the panel passes from its original ecclesiastical setting in Milan into an international art market and a British private collection, and it is the first step in the chain of owners recorded for the painting.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Provenance)

Lansdowne and the Suffolk Chain

Hamilton's ownership was short and its ending is precisely dated. Greville recorded on 1 February 1786 that "Mr. Hamilton has sold his fine picture" to Lord Lansdowne, and the painting was later seen in Lord Lansdowne's collection at Shelburne House in 1802 or 1803 by Goede. The Greville note supplies both a date and an attributed statement, a quotation reported from his record rather than a surviving sale contract, and it identifies the buyer by title. The Goede sighting at Shelburne House confirms that by the early nineteenth century the picture was physically present in Lansdowne's collection, although the source gives the date only as 1802 or 1803, leaving a small unresolved interval. Between the 1786 report of sale and the 1802 or 1803 viewing, the documentation records no other owner, which is a gap in evidence about the picture's movements rather than evidence that ownership changed.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Provenance)

The next stages are explicitly qualified by the source. The National Gallery states that the painting is presumed identical with a picture in the Lansdowne Sale of 20 March 1806, lot 47, and with a picture said to have been bought before 1817 at a Lansdowne Sale by Hill, who sold it a month later to Lord Suffolk. Both identifications are hedged: the first is a presumption of identity based on the sale, and the second rests on a picture said to have been bought, with the buyer, Hill, reselling within a month to Lord Suffolk. The phrase said to have been bought flags that the 1817 transaction is reported rather than firmly documented in this account, and the two Lansdowne sale references, 1806 and one before 1817, are not reconciled with each other in the source. Read together with the earlier Lansdowne ownership, these entries describe a dispersal of the collection through sales in which the picture is identified by presumption and report, so the confident line from Hamilton to Lansdowne to Suffolk is actually a line with two qualified links in it, and the difference between a presumed identity and a proven one should be kept visible.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Provenance)

Lord Suffolk's possession is the best-documented later phase of the picture's British history, and it connects the provenance to the exhibition record. The National Gallery notes that the painting may be the picture lent by Lord Suffolk to the British Institution in 1818, No. 3, and that it was recorded in Lord Suffolk's collection by Buchanan in 1824. The 1818 loan is again expressed as a possibility, may be the picture, while Buchanan's 1824 record places the work in the collection directly. The Gallery records the painting's previous owner as Henry Charles Howard, 18th Earl of Suffolk and 11th Earl of Berkshire, which supplies the full name and titles behind the shorthand Lord Suffolk used in the sale and loan entries. Because the source does not describe a further transfer out of the Suffolk collection, the documented sequence in this material ends with that ownership, and the interval between Buchanan's 1824 record and whatever came next is unrecorded here rather than shown to contain a change of hands.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Provenance; Details, Previous owners)

The panel was removed from San Francesco Grande to the Hospital of Santa Caterina alla Ruota and was sold by the latter institution in 1785 to Gavin Hamilton, who brought it to England, where C. J. Greville saw it on 24 December 1785.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

C. J. Greville recorded on 1 February 1786 that 'Mr. Hamilton has sold his fine picture' to Lord Lansdowne, and it was later seen in Lord Lansdowne's collection at Shelburne House in 1802 or 1803 by Goede.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The painting is presumed identical with a picture in the Lansdowne Sale of 20 March 1806 (lot 47), and with a picture said to have been bought before 1817 at a Lansdowne Sale by Hill, who sold it a month later to Lord Suffolk.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The painting's previous owner is recorded as Henry Charles Howard, 18th Earl of Suffolk and 11th Earl of Berkshire.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

Exhibition History and Its Limits

The exhibition record for the National Gallery's Virgin of the Rocks is thin and conditional, and the museum's own provenance account states it in the cautious register the evidence requires. The painting may be the picture lent by Lord Suffolk to the British Institution in 1818, where it would have carried the number 3 in that exhibition, and it was recorded in Lord Suffolk's collection by Buchanan in 1824. Both statements are framed as possibilities and as a record of inspection rather than as certain identifications, so the 1818 British Institution showing stands as a probable rather than a documented exhibition of this panel. This single exhibition entry sits at the end of a provenance chain whose earlier links are themselves hedged, and it should be read as the one public display securely associable with the object before its modern museum life, not as a fully evidenced loan history.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Provenance)

The painting may be the picture lent by Lord Suffolk to the British Institution in 1818 (No. 3), and it was recorded in Lord Suffolk's collection by Buchanan in 1824.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

Institutional Framing and Enduring Regard

The National Gallery presents the London panel as a rare survival of one of Leonardo's large-scale painted works and as a key example of the techniques with which he transformed Italian painting. That framing places the picture at the centre of a technical as well as an art-historical story, since the same source describes the innovations through which Leonardo gave the impression that the figures emerge from the darkness of the shaded setting. The Gallery also records a continuing affective response: it notes that the picture still exudes a quiet power over five hundred years on, drawing the viewer in to experience something inexplicable and very special. Both statements are the institution's own characterisation rather than neutral description, and they are useful precisely because they show how a museum account can combine technical evaluation with an appeal to sustained viewer attention. The panel is held in London as NG1093, acquired in 1880 by purchase, so this language of rarity and continuing power has been attached to the object in a public collection for well over a century.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Overview, In-depth; In-depth)

Why the Object Matters

Interpretation

Taken together, these stages show a picture whose meanings accumulated rather than replaced one another. It was made for a specific Milanese altarpiece and a specific doctrinal purpose, replaced an earlier version now in the Louvre, and then, after removal and sale in 1785, became an object of English collecting, viewing and exhibition before entering the National Gallery in 1880. The doctrinal subject and the observed composition remain the basis on which the Gallery now presents it as a rare survival and a key example of Leonardo's transformative techniques, and the same source's remark that it still exudes a quiet power over five hundred years on shows how the institutional account joins technical description to an explicit claim about continuing effect. That joining is itself part of the reception history: the panel is valued not only for what it depicts but for the evidence it provides of Leonardo's methods and for an experience that the Gallery characterises as inexplicable and very special. The object therefore matters within a larger history of art and material culture as a documented instance of a fifteenth-century altarpiece panel that became, through displacement, sale, collection and public display, a touchstone for later accounts of Leonardo's achievement.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Overview; Overview, In-depth; In-depth)

The National Gallery describes the painting as a rare survival of one of Leonardo's large-scale painted works and a key example of the techniques with which he transformed Italian painting.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The National Gallery notes that the picture still exudes a quiet power over five hundred years on, drawing the viewer in to experience something inexplicable and very special.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The National Gallery's Reading of the Setting

Interpretation

The National Gallery suggests that the idea of an event taking place before the dawn of time is hard to show visually, and that this could be the reason Leonardo sets the figures in a primitive, almost hostile landscape. This is explicitly an attributed curatorial reading rather than a statement about Leonardo's private intention: the evidence phrases the explanation as a possibility, using the language of suggestion and could be. The reading connects the doctrinal subject of the Immaculate Conception to the visual form of the grotto and the rocky landscape, so that the setting is interpreted not as incidental scenery but as a pictorial response to a theological problem. Because the source presents this as a suggestion, it should not be promoted to a documented statement of the artist's design rationale; it remains a scholarly proposal that the landscape's raw, pre-human character gives visual form to a grace said to precede creation.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., In-depth)

The National Gallery suggests that this idea of an event taking place before the dawn of time is hard to show visually, and it could be the reason Leonardo sets the figures in a primitive, almost hostile landscape.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

Identification, medium and acquisition

The painting known as 'The Virgin of the Rocks' belongs to the National Gallery, London, where it is catalogued as NG1093 and where the museum records its acquisition in 1880 by purchase. The Gallery dates the work to about 1491/2-9 and 1506-8, a span that already signals a long and interrupted execution. Its medium and support are oil on wood, with poplar identified, and the panel measures 189.5 by 120 centimetres. The Gallery records the inscription summary simply as 'Inscribed'. The painting retains a fifteenth-century Italian frame with later additions, a detail that matters for any reconstruction of how the panel was originally seen, since the frame is not wholly coeval with the picture.(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Key facts, Details)

The Wikimedia Commons record offers a second institutional description of the same object, describing a faithful photographic reproduction of the painting held by the National Gallery, London, with the original file measuring 2,813 by 4,226 pixels. That record gives the medium as oil on poplar wood, specifying a cradled panel, and repeats the dimensions of 189.5 by 120 centimetres. Read together with the Gallery's own catalogue entry, the two accounts agree on the essentials of support and size and differ only in emphasis: the Gallery identifies poplar without the term cradled, while the Commons record names the panel's cradled state, a condition detail rather than a contradiction. Because the Commons file is a reproduction rather than the object, it is best treated as a discovery aid and image cross-reference for the painting, not as independent primary testimony about the physical work.(commons.wikimedia.org, n.d., Summary)(The National Gallery, London, n.d., Key facts, Details)

The National Gallery, London holds 'The Virgin of the Rocks' (NG1093), acquired in 1880 by purchase.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)

The Wikimedia Commons file is a faithful photographic reproduction of the painting held by the National Gallery, London, with the original file measuring 2,813 by 4,226 pixels.(commons.wikimedia.org, n.d.)

The working insurance estimate and its limits

Interpretation

The only monetary figure supplied is a calculated working insurance estimate of US$500 million to US$2 billion, recorded as a working calculation generated on 2026-10-16. The methodology states that this is a broad, conservative working insurance range generated by a model for manual review, derived from the confirmed context that the object is an autograph Leonardo da Vinci panel painting, oil on poplar, 189.5 by 120 centimetres, made about 1491/2-9 and 1506-8 for the church of San Francesco Grande, Milan, and now in the National Gallery, London as NG1093. The range uses the artist's defining status, the rarity of large-scale Leonardo panel paintings, the size of the work, its documented early provenance and 1880 acquisition by a major national museum, and its prominence as a key example of Italian Renaissance painting as factors supporting a high value tier. No comparable sales, auction outcomes, or private insurance records were used, and the range is intentionally wide to reflect the absence of an official appraisal and the extreme scarcity of comparable objects. The qualification states that this is a model-generated working range for manual review only, not an official insurance value, appraisal, auction result, or sale price; that it does not reflect access to private insurance records or comparable sales; and that actual insurance coverage should be based on a qualified professional appraisal and the specific policy terms. The figure should therefore be read as an order-of-magnitude estimate whose width is itself the finding, expressing how little standard market evidence exists for an object of this category.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)(commons.wikimedia.org, n.d.)

What the records together establish

Set side by side, the two kinds of record answer different questions about the same panel. The museum catalogue and the institutional reproduction record establish what the object is and has been, its medium and support, dimensions, frame, inscription summary, subject, technique and provenance. The valuation record converts a subset of those same confirmed facts, autograph status, panel support, size, date, Milanese commission, documented provenance and museum acquisition, into a monetary tier while explicitly disclaiming any basis in comparable sales or appraisals. The estimate's reliance on the object's status and rarity rather than on transactions reflects the special problem of valuing works that are effectively unique and largely non-traded. What the evidence does not support is treatment of the US$500 million to US$2 billion range as a sale price, an appraisal or an insured amount; the appropriate reading is a model-generated working figure for manual review, qualified by the absence of an official appraisal. Within a larger history of material culture, the panel's importance lies in the conjunction the evidence documents: a large surviving Leonardo panel, made for a specific Milanese devotional programme, carrying an unusually continuous English provenance from an eighteenth-century sale into a national collection, which is exactly the combination that makes the object both historically consequential and, in valuation terms, resistant to ordinary comparison.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)(commons.wikimedia.org, n.d.)

Working estimate

Calculated working insurance estimate, not a sale price: Estimated value: US$500M to US$2B Recorded date: Working calculation, generated 2026-10-16. Methodology: This is a broad, conservative working insurance range generated by a model for manual review. It is derived from the confirmed context that the object is an autograph Leonardo da Vinci panel painting, oil on poplar, 189.5 x 120 cm, made about 1491/2-9 and 1506-8 for the church of San Francesco Grande, Milan, and now in the National Gallery, London as NG1093. The range uses the artist's defining status, the rarity of large-scale Leonardo panel paintings, the size of the work, its documented early provenance and 1880 acquisition by a major national museum, and its prominence as a key example of Italian Renaissance painting as factors supporting a high value tier. No comparable sales, auction outcomes, or private insurance records were used. The range is intentionally wide to reflect the absence of an official appraisal and the extreme scarcity of comparable objects. Qualification: This is a model-generated working range for manual review only. It is not an official insurance value, appraisal, auction result, or sale price. It does not reflect access to private insurance records or comparable sales. Actual insurance coverage should be based on a qualified professional appraisal and the specific policy terms.(The National Gallery, London, n.d.)(commons.wikimedia.org, n.d.)