Leda and the Swan
Cesare da Sesto, 1505
Leda and the Swan is an oil on panel by Cesare da Sesto, a painter associated with the circle of Leonardo da Vinci, dated to around 1515, although the catalogue record gives 1505. It shows Leda, a figure from Greek myth, nude and reclining, while the swan in which Zeus appears approaches her, an episode that classical sources made a recurring subject for mythological nudes. The painting is held at Wilton House, near Salisbury, England. It is considered one of the closest copies of a composition by Leonardo that has been lost, an original now missing and known mainly through later versions. Alongside other replicas in the Galleria Borghese and the Uffizi, it offers a way to approach the idea Leonardo developed on the subject. For this reason, it is studied less as an independent invention than as evidence of how the Leonardesque model spread among his followers and workshop circle.
- Painter
- Cesare da Sesto
- Date
- 1505
- Medium
- oil paint, panel
- Dimensions
- 70 × 70 cm
- Museum
- Wilton House, Wilton
- Genre
- mythological painting, nude
- Depicts
- nudity, mons pubis, Leda, hipshot, Zeus, swan
More works by Cesare da Sesto
