San Giovanni Battista by Leonardo da Vinci at the Louvre Abu Dhabi

For over ten years, Leonardo Da Vinci continued to perfect the smallest details in the composition of his San Giovanni Battista, painted in oil on wood. Thin layers of paint set one atop the other, few colours used in a masterful game of light and dark, the “shading” in which Da Vinci excelled and which gives the painting both intensity and softness. Leonardo da Vinci began painting the image of John the Baptist, the patron saint of the city of Florence, at the start of the XVI Century. It is unknown whether the work was commissioned or if the artist himself chose the subject, but the work remained in the possession of the artist who brought it with him when he moved to France in 1516 on the invitation of King Francis I, and it was still unfinished in part when Leonardo died. Restored in 2016, the famed painting, for the fifth anniversary of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, will be on display in the museum of the United Arab Emirates in the hall dedicated to the Modern Age (XV-XVIII Century) for two years.