The Virgin of the Rocks or The Madonna of the Rocks is a term used to describe one of two different paintings. They are extremely similar in name, subject matter, and appearance, but there are important differences between the two. The difference between the paintings is one of the plot points in The Da Vinci Code. To reduce confusion, below they are broken down below by the museum in which they currently reside:
In the National Gallery, London (painted 1508)
This is a painting generally accredited to Leonardo Da Vinci c. 1508. It was stolen from Florence during the Napoleonic wars and recovered in a small town in Austria some 50 years afterwards. Since then, it has been bought by a French merchant before being sold to the National Gallery in London, England in the 19th century.
Official site from the National Gallery: [1] (http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG1093)
An almost identical painting with the name Madonna of the Rocks is to be found in the Louvre, however it is not as universally accepted as being Da Vinci's work. French authorities claim predominantly that the work is authentic, due to the fine brush work and use of chiaroscuro, or contrast between light and dark, characteristic of many of Leonardo's works.
Official page from the Louvre: [2] (http://www.louvre.fr/anglais/collec/peint/peint_f.htm)
While the overall compositions of the two versions of the Madonna are virtually the same, there are numerous discrepancies that lead scholars to believe that the second painting was not wholly the work of Leonardo.
Pizzorusso studied the geology within the two versions of the Madonna, and came to the conclusion that the Louvre painting is a Leonardo original, and that the National Gallery version was not completed by him.
The plant life depicted is not characteristic of the kinds of plants that would be found growing in such a dark and damp grotto, and the rocks in the distant background are not shrouded in the mysterious mists that are hallmark in Leonardo’s works.
for the painting of the Virgin of the Rocks to Leonardo and Ambrogio de Predis."
Regardless of the intense debates that are associated with the images, the paintings themselves remain stunning in a myriad of ways.
The composition of the Madonnas is exquisite – the Virgin Mary, the Angel Uriel, Christ, and John the Baptist all form a triangle, each person somehow connected to the next.
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