ITALIAN SCHOOL. cooo LEONARDO DA VINCI, oooooo FRENCH MUSEUM.

THE HOLY FAMILY.

In the picture we have before us, Da Vinci has rendered a novel and singular conception. He has drawn the Virgin nursing her Son, whilst she is herself seated on her mother's lap. By this, the artist has wished to impart, that the Virgin, although become a mother, had lost nothing of her primitive innocence. Ingenuous and timid, the young Mary seems to have scarcely left her own mother's fostering bosom : she is playing with the Infant Jesus, and is in a manner of speaking, a child herself.

There is no doubt of the composition of this picture being Da Vinci's, since Vasari relates, that when the drawing of it was exhibited at Florence, its appearance excited general enthusiasm: but some persons have thought that the execution of the painting ought not to be attributed to that artist.

This picture is painted on wood; it belonged to the cardinal Mazarine, and has been engraved by Giovanni Cantini, of Florence.

Height, 5 feet 4 inches; width, 3 feet 8 inches.