Prized Leonardo portrait on the move at US National Gallery of Art amid renovations

Guests turning as much as the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork (NGA) in Washington, DC, to see the one Leonardo da Vinci portray on public show within the Americas—his early portrait of a Florentine banker’s teenage daughter—take notice: the work is being moved from its common perch within the galleries for Thirteenth-to Sixteenth-century Italian, French and Spanish works as they endure renovations.

Starting 17 July, Ginevra de’ Benci (1474-78) will probably be on view in gallery 39 of the NGA’s Neoclassical West Constructing, an area sometimes reserved mainly for Flemish and Netherlandish works of the identical period. Gallery six, the place the Leonardo often hangs alongside items by Andrea del Castagno, Sandro Botticelli, Filippino Lippi and others, will probably be closed for renovations till early subsequent yr.

The Leonardo’s relocation coincides with the closure of the NGA’s major entrance going through the Nationwide Mall and about 20 different galleries on the bottom flooring of the museum’s West Constructing. The closures are obligatory as a consequence of ongoing repairs and renovations to the constructing, together with the alternative of sections of its roof, upgrades to its entrance going through the Nationwide Mall and sprucing up its garden.

The NGA’s West Constructing, designed by John Russell Pope—who additionally designed the Jefferson Memorial and the British Museum’s Duveen Gallery—was the world’s largest marble constructing on the time of its inception. Constructed on the website of president James A. Garfield’s assassination, it was accomplished in 1941.

Leonardo’s portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci, made when he was in his early to mid twenties, was held within the princely collections of Liechtenstein from the seventeenth century till the Sixties, when Prince Franz Josef II of Liechtenstein let it’s recognized that the image was on the market. The NGA received out within the ensuing bidding warfare, buying the portray in 1967 for $5m—the biggest sum ever paid for a bit of artwork on the time. The museum had hosted Leonardo’s Mona Lisa 4 years prior throughout a uncommon travelling exhibit of the enduring work, which prompted a furor and lengthy queues in Washington.

The prized acquisition landed within the US capital beneath cowl of secrecy, with an FBI escort—utilizing the codename “the Chicken”—in January 1967. The museum’s press launch saying the acquisition said the enormity of the acquisition fairly plainly: “No different typically acknowledged portray by Leonardo is understood in personal arms or in any public assortment outdoors Europe.” It was unveiled to nice fanfare on 17 March 1967, the thirtieth anniversary of the NGA’s founding.

Final yr, the NGA acquired the Leonardo drawing Grotesque Head of an Previous Lady (1489-90), which is a chief instance of his many research of physiognomy.