The last and most remarkable sheet in the series of
Madonna del Gatto stuclies contains, on both sides,
sketches for pictures with rounded tops. In both the
Virgin is represented almost full-length, seated on a low
bench or chair. One of her feet is placed on a high step
so that the knee forms a convenient seat for the big,
chubby child, hugging his cat. The movement of the
legs in the Madonna, accompanied by the sideways
bend of her head, is rapid and vehement so that the tight
diagonal folds of the skirt run long and cleep, catching
big masses of light and shade; and over her shoulder
her mantle sweeps like a big projecting wing. The
study vibrates with life; the chiaroscuro effect has been
caught with impressionistic bravura, the values of light
and shade presented with a dash and a breadth which
carry one’s thoughts to Rembrandt. One may search
in vain among Florentine Renaissance drawings for one
with richer and more vigorous pictorial qualities.
The only painting in which we find these Madonna del
Gatto compositions employed is Sodoma’s well-known
juvenile work in the Brera Gallery at Milan. It is truc
that in it the cat has been replaced by a lamb which
curls as much as itssomewhat stiffer joints admit of,
but the Virgin and the child remind us forcibly of those
we observe in Leonardo’s drawings. Sodoma must
certainly have been acquainted with them, and it is
quite conceivable that he paintecl this picture in
Leonardo’s studio at Milan.
Another Madonna composition, which also occupied
Leonardo’s thoughts, was that. of the child sitting on
his mother’s lap trying to get at something which she
holds in her hand, — a flower or fruit. There are studies
for this composition on both sides of a sheet in the British

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