Leonardo’s Last Breath
TITLE: “Francis I Receives the Last Breath of Leonardo da Vinci”
ARTIST: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
DATE: 1818
WHY WE CHOSE IT: Italian Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) died 493 years ago today in Amboise, France.
In the early nineteenth century, Count de Blacas, ambassador of Louis XVIII, commissioned Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres for a painting depicting Leonardo’s death, with King Francis I receiving his last breaths. While Leonardo did move to France in 1516, having been appointed “First painter, architect and mechanic of the King,” the story of his death in the presence of Francis I comes from Vasari’s “The Lives” and is undoubtedly fictitious.
SOURCE: Le Petit Palace (Paris)
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