Until recently, there was only one work by Leonardo da Vinci publicly on view in the United States: Ginevra de’ Benci at the National Gallery of Art, hung behind glass on a plinth denoting its significance as of one of the country’s great masterworks. Now, a second Leonardo has appeared, with surprisingly little fanfare, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The painting has been quietly on view since the spring without so much as a press release.
Madonna of the Yarnwinder, also known as The Lansdowne Madonna, ca. 1501, is on long-term loan from the collection of hedge fund titan Kenneth C. Griffin. “It is a very important image,” the art historian Martin Kemp, a leading authority on Leonardo, tells CULTURED.
Madonna of the Yarnwinder is attributed to “Leonardo da Vinci and Studio,” a careful wording that implies Leonardo himself had a hand in constructing the work alongside his pupils. It is now installed in gallery 609, on the second floor of the Met’s European painting galleries. It began drawing attention after its unlikely presence was noted by art advisor Evan Beard on Instagram over the weekend. (“It was interesting that room 609 was empty. No influencers. No gawkers, No clout seekers,” he wrote. “Just Leonardo radiating blue. It’s just odd to me.”) ARTnews pointed out that reporter Judith Dobrzynski first spotted the work on view in April, although few others seemed to have noticed.
One of the art world’s most omnivorous and private collectors, Griffin has begun sharing his treasures with museums more frequently of late. In New York—where he threatens to pull Citadel out of state in response to an ongoing, public battle with Mayor Zohran Mamdani over the city’s new pied-à-terre tax—he is also behind the loan of a 27-foot-long, 150-million-year-old stegosaurus skeleton, on view at the American Museum of Natural History, that he purchased at Sotheby’s in 2024 for $44.6 million. (It was at the time the most expensive fossil ever sold at auction.) Griffin additionally recently lent 10 works by Jean-Michel Basquiat to the Pérez Art Museum Miami for “Basquiat: Figures, Signs, Symbols.”
The Met notes that Madonna of the Yarnwinder resembles an image that Leonardo described in a letter to Italian patron Isabella d’Este in 1501. He wrote that he was at work on “a Madonna seated as if she were about to spin yarn. The Child has placed his foot on the basket of yarns and has grasped the yarnwinder and gazes attentively at the four spokes that are in the form of a cross.” While it remains unclear whether Leonardo completed that specific work, the theme recurs in a number of compositions from the time, including this one. The Met describes it as “one of the finest of the group.”
Kemp believes this work and a second iteration in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland, the Buccleuch Madonna, came from underdrawings by the artist himself. “We have evidence of scientific examination that the two Madonnas developed side-by-side in Leonardo’s studio,” he tells CULTURED. “One version was for a French diplomat, and the other probably for the king.” Madonna of the Yarnwinder has previously been displayed at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011 and at the Louvre in 2019 for its landmark Leonardo show. Now, it seems to have taken up long-term residence in New York. “It is great to have the picture on public view again,” Kemp says.
Of the quiet reception, a representative from the museum noted only that “we have a number of other works on long-term loan on view in those galleries that make important contributions and expand the narratives we’re able to present with the Met collection.” Still, Beard, who posted on Instagram about discovering the piece, noted incredulously, “The last Leonardo on view at the Met, the unattractive and unfinished St Jerome in the Wilderness —lent by the Vatican—had much fanfare when it was unveiled. Heck, the Mona Lisa had its own police escort when it came to the Met in 1963—creating lines down fifth avenue for months.” It remains to be seen if and when the crowds will descend on Gallery 609.
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