Andrea Solari

His first teacher was his own brother, the sculptor Cristoforo Solari, nicknamed il Gobbo, the hunchback, who carved marble tombs for the Milanese court. Andrea Solari learned to model form with a sculptor's eye, then spent time in Venice, where the clear, cool light of painters like Giovanni Bellini got into his work.

Back in Milan he fell under the spell of Leonardo da Vinci, who was living in the city. You can see it in his best-loved panel, the Madonna with the Green Cushion in the Louvre, painted around 1507. The Virgin's downturned face has Leonardo's soft shadowing, while the ripe fruit and the crisp folds of cloth stay Lombard and exact.

His reputation carried him over the Alps. In early 1507 the French cardinal Georges d'Amboise, chief minister to the king, brought him to Normandy to decorate the chapel of his new château at Gaillon, and Solari stayed in France about two years before returning to Milan.