Victoria Feldman was a last minute substitute speaker last week and talked about the “Burlington House Cartoon” by Leonardo Da Vinci which is also known as “The Virgin and child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist”.

The painting was created while Leonardo was in Florence, as a guest of the Servite Monastery. The eye-witnesses say that for two days people young and old flocked to see the miraculous drawing as if they were attending a festival. This would date the cartoon to about 1500.

In 1791 it was inventoried as belonging to the Royal Academy in London. Today, it is located in the National Gallery of London. The value of the sketch, also known as the “Leonardo Cartoon”, has been placed by some art experts at more than $35 million. The Cartoon was damaged in July, 1987 by a man (Robert Cambridge) who entered the gallery with a shotgun under his coat.

As a footnote to the above, Victoria is to be thanked for sending Holiday Greeting cards to a number of our former and departed members (Charlie Nash, Frank Lankowski, Ed Miles, Glenn Blong, Tas Tousimis, Don Howard). This is a practice our club should adopt for future years!