Leonardo da Vinci’s Lost Leda… and the Plants That Survived It

Image: Leonardo da VInci, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

During the centuries leading up to Leonardo da Vinci’s work, plants were often treated as minor details in paintings, valued more for their symbolic meaning than for botanical accuracy. Botanical illustrations were frequently flattened and schematic rather than true to life (Meyer & Glover, 1989). Leonardo approached plants differently. He was fascinated by nature and took time to observe it closely. He did not simply look at a plant as a whole. He examined the leaves, petals, branches, and even the way individual parts related to one another. 

Interestingly, Leonardo’s most detailed plant studies may have been created for a painting that never existed in finished form. Meyer (1990) explains that although art historians have traditionally credited Leonardo with a painting based on the Greek myth of Leda, queen of Sparta, and Zeus, the surviving evidence does not prove that a finished painting ever existed. What we do know is that Leonardo created multiple preparatory studies and at least one cartoon for Leda and the Swan. Meyer argues that the cartoon may have been as far as Leonardo ever took the project. 

The plant studies associated with Leda and the Swan show just how closely Leonardo observed the natural world. In his study of the Star-of-Bethlehem, he carefully recorded features as small as the flower’s six-part structure, six stamens, leaf veins, bracts, and stigma. Meyer and Glover (1989) describe parts of the drawing as “startlingly correct,” noting how closely Leonardo’s observations correspond with the actual structure of the plant. His studies of marsh marigold and wood anemone show similar attention to botanical structure, with the proportions and arrangement of leaves, flowers, and stems closely matching modern botanical descriptions (Meyer & Glover, 1989). Even his study of bramble, or blackberry, captures berries at different stages of ripeness along with details of the leaves and stems. In fact, Meyer and Glover (1989) found Leonardo’s bramble so carefully rendered that they attempted to identify its exact species, although centuries of change and hybridization make a definitive identification difficult today. 

Leonardo’s plant studies were remarkably accurate, but accuracy was never his only goal. When necessary, he altered nature to better serve his art. In his study of the cattail, for example, the leaves appear to have been deliberately fanned around the flower spike rather than shown exactly as they would naturally grow (Meyer & Glover, 1989). What’s remarkable about these drawings isn’t that Leonardo behaved like a modern botanist centuries too early. It’s that for him, observing nature and creating art weren’t separate activities. 

Further Reading

Meyer, B. H. (1990). Leonardo’s hypothetical painting of Leda and the Swan. Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 34(3), 279–294.

Meyer, B. H., & Glover, A. W. (1989). Botany and art in Leonardo’s “Leda and the Swan.” Leonardo, 22(1), 75–82.