The Encounter: Drawings from Leonardo to Rembrandt

Touching exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of Renaissance and Baroque portrait drawings focusing on drawings done from life.

The show was gently themed looking at the purpose of the pictures and subjects but the pictures were just so stunning that they didn’t really need a narrative. I loved two sections on specific artists, the Carracci studio looking at how the three artist cousins used each other and visitors to the studio as subjects and Holbein the Younger as a court artist. I was fascinated by the pictures of women in what may have been court livery.

There were many stars of the show. I think my favourite was a wonderful study of a nude youth and child by Pontormo where the model is the same as used for the young man supporting the body of Christ in the Deposition who looks out at the viewer. I wonder who he was. There was also a beautiful young man by Clouet, the Holbein of the French court. In any age he has a stunning face.

The best story was with a picture by Carlo Dolci of a man with a half-smile captured mid conversation. He was identified by an early collector who probably got the picture from Dolci as a shoemaker. It may have been intended as gift or possibly been part payment to the craftsman.

Closes on 22 October 2017

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