Leonardo da Vinci Hid Invisible Drawings in His Sketches. Now High-Tech Scanners Have Brought Them to Light

To mark the 500th anniversary of the Leonardo da Vinci‘s death, a collection of his drawings are going on a UK tour next year. But if you think that “Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing,” as the show is called, is just a Renaissance man greatest hits tour, think again. There will be surprises.

Some 144 extraordinary illustrated works will be displayed in 12 simultaneous exhibitions at various cities across Britain. These exhibitions will open in tandem in February 2019, before being brought together to be exhibited that May at the the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace. All in all, there will be a total of 200 sheets on display there, making it the largest exhibition of the artist’s work in over 65 years.

The revelations in the show come thanks to modern technology. Infrared light is used to show hidden drawings and alternative versions of Leonado’s sketches.

For instance, you discover how Studies of water was built up in stages (see below). The underlying structure of water currents in chalk are rendered visible by infrared for the first time, showing that a much simpler design existed before da Vinci added little rosettes of bubbles to the composition.

Most striking of all are two blank sheets of paper that are now known to hold invisible studies for hands. High-energy X-ray fluorescence has revealed the sketches called Studies of hands for the Adoration of the Magi.

The technology also clarifies how these incredible drawings managed to vanish in plain sight over the centuries. Because of the high content of copper in da Vinci’s metal stylus, a chemical reaction transformed the lines into transparent copper salt.

“As so much of his life’s work was unrealized or destroyed, Leonardo’s greatest achievements survive only in his drawings and manuscripts,” says the Royal Collection Trust in their official statement. It’s true: His incredible inventions, sculptures, and buildings do not survive beyond their masterfully illustrated prototypes or sketches.

The exhibition will also display various examples of drawing materials Leonardo used, including pen and ink, red and black chalks, watercolour and metalpoint.

See the before and after images of Leonardo’s drawings below.

“Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing” will run from February 1 through May 6, 2019 at various museums in the UK. The exhibition at Buckingham Palace will be on view from May 24 until October 13, 2019, before 80 drawings travel to Her Majesty’s Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh in November 2019.

LongjumpingAmoeba on April 10th, 2018 at 05:59 UTC »

how come in old paintings they always have extremely straight, long noses and short curly hair? Like, they all just have this 'look' if you know what I mean

Dagos on April 10th, 2018 at 05:51 UTC »

Lol I can only imagine that we found his "old embarassing sketchbook" that he wouldn't have want us to see.

Siserith on April 10th, 2018 at 03:54 UTC »

weren't canvases reused a lot? artists would buy cheap pantings for cheaper than fresh canvas and use them

Edit: holy shit, this exploded my top comment.

Edit 2: did some research: most paintings back then were made for a reason, either as references to prove a painters skill for bigger works, or say make one of a bride/groom to be if they were to be married off to a person far away, etc. many would be sold/auctioned/reused after the fact for super cheap and be painted over.

Edit3: some good info from u/Frleon22 who knows a lot more than me

Painter here. For sketches you might do that, otherwise: No fucking way. Canvas is and has been relatively affordable and isn't your first concern when it comes saving money. Wouldn't have concerned Leonardo anyway, as in his time canvas wasn't really a thing yet. He painted on wood panels. Instead of just getting some random boards, painters typically went to a cabinet maker and had it prepared for them (joined, polished, cradled etc.). Still getting a new one was preferable to painting over old pictures, except for practice stuff. Oil painting requires adhering to some technical rules in order to ensure the painting's longevity. Thin layers typically age better than thick impasto. It is absolutely imperative to paint slow-drying layers over fast-drying layers (i.e., paint on top should have more oil and a lesser amount of catalysing additives). So painting on top of an layer of unknown composition can be risky, unless it's really old (decades at least) and has dried thoroughly. You'll get massive cracks, paint flaking off etc. Oil paint doesn't dry physically by having solvent evaporate but by a very slow polymerisation process, so yes, it does take decades to become reasonably inactive (I'm unsure as to whether it ever stops reacting completely. For instance, oil paint becomes more transparent over the course of centuries). If in fact you paint on a very old painting, it will have some cracks already (some amount of cracking is hard-coded into oil paint, as it expands a bit during the drying process). Given the very thin paint layers popular in some epochs (most of renaissance, mannerism and classicism, as opposed to baroque and classical modernity), these previous cracks would show through and you don't want that. The article isn't on any of that, anyway: it's about ink on paper, which generally is a story of its own. Basically you could choose between having immortal ink that might destroy the paper at some point or having ink disappear after some time.