Author’s Note‘The Virgin of the Rocks’ in the Louvre in Paris was painted about 1485 and is the earliest of the pictures which Leonardo da Vinci is known to have completed.
It was the centre panel of an altar piece commissioned by the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in Milan.
‘The Madonna in the Church’ by Jan Van Eyck, 1380-1441, is in the Dahlem Museum, Berlin. ‘St. George and the Dragon’ by Raphael is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
‘Portrait of a Young Girl’ by Petrus Christus, 1400-1473, is in the Stault Museum, Berlin. He was a contemporary and perhaps a pupil of Jan Van Eyck but in comparison he seems to have been almost deaf to the voices of the spirit. Only in this really noble and suggestive work can we see the spiritual sensitivity which is so moving in all Jan Van Eyck’s pictures.