Focus on this artwork and explore the History.
The earliest reference to a painting of this subject by Leonardo is in a letter of 14 April 1501 by Fra Pietro da Novellara, the head of the Carmelites in Florence, to Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua. Leonardo had recently returned to his native city following the French invasion of Milan in 1499; the intervening years he had spent first in Isabella's court, during which brief stay he produced a cartoon (now in the Louvre) for a portrait of her, and then in Venice. Isabella was determined to get a finished painting by Leonardo for her collection, and to that end she instructed Fra Pietro, her contact in Florence, to press Leonardo into agreeing to a commission. Two letters of reply by the friar survive. In the second, written after he had succeeded in meeting with the artist, he writes that Leonardo has become distracted by his mathematical pursuits and is busy working on a small painting for Florimond Robertet, which he goes on to describe:"The little picture which he is doing is of a Madonna seated as if she were about to spin yarn. The Child has placed his foot on the basket of yarns and has grasped the yarn-winder and gazes attentively at four spokes that are in the form of a cross. As if desirous of the cross he smiles and holds it firm, and is unwilling to yield it to his Mother who seems to want to take it away from him."The passage is valuable for being one of the few descriptions by a contemporary viewer of a work by Leonardo; it matches the composition of the Buccleuch and Lansdowne Madonnas in all respects except that there is no basket in either painting. Robertet's painting was probably commissioned late in 1499 just before Leonardo left Milan, and was possibly begun there.
Scholars disagree on whether Robertet received his painting or not. In January 1507 Francesco Pandolfini, the Florentine ambassador to the French court in Blois, reported that “a little picture by [Leonardo’s] hand has recently been brought here and is held to be an excellent thing”. The Madonna does not, however, appear in a posthumous inventory of Robertet's collection made in 1532 (though the authenticity of the inventory has been called into question). One hypothesis holds that it passed from Robertet's collection into that of the French king, thus explaining its absence from the inventory. It is unclear, however, why it would have left the royal collection.In 1525 two inventories were drawn up of the possessions of Leonardo's assistant and heir Salaì, who died the preceding year. These mention a “Madonna with a Child in her Arms”. This is thought to be evidence that one of the prime versions of the Madonna of the Yarnwinder remained in Leonardo's possession while the other was sent to Robertet.Neither of the paintings accepted as prime versions has a provenance that can be traced back to Robertet or Salaì, or further back than the 18th century, though the Buccleuch Madonna was in France at that time. However, the Lansdowne Madonna could easily have been bought by its earliest known owners from a French collection in the period following the French Revolution, when many works with a French aristocratic provenance were bought by British collectors.
Salaì Isabella d'Este Florence cartoon Louvre Leonardo yarn Blois Mantua Yarn prime version Carmelites French Revolution