An Italian Scholar Says He Has Identified Leonardo da Vinci’s Only Known Sculpture. Others Are Skeptical

ARTNET NEWS
By Henri Neuendorf,

A scholar says this work, known as The Virgin with the Laughing Child (ca. 1465), is by Leonardo da Vinci. Photo: courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

An Italian scholar says a terracotta statuette in the collection of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum is by Leonardo da Vinci, even though the museum isn’t convinced. According to The Art Newspaper, art history professor Francesco Caglioti of the University of Naples Federico II attributed the sculpture, known as The Virgin with the Laughing Child (ca. 1465), to the 15th-century master in an interview with an Italian newspaper. If he’s correct, it would be the only known sculpture by the Renaissance polymath in existence. The work is scheduled to go on view as part of the first retrospective of Leonardo’s mentor, Andrea del Verrocchio (1435–1488) at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence next month. The show travels to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, in September. [More]