Leone

Dürer made this small lion in 1494, in gouache heightened with gold, and the odd thing about it is that he had almost certainly never seen one. There were no lions to study in Nuremberg. So he built the animal partly out of heraldry, from the lions on coats of arms and manuscript pages, which is why it sits there stiff and ceremonial rather than alive, its legs not quite convincing. That same year plague broke out in his city and the young Dürer set off south, crossing the Alps to Venice to see Italian art at first hand. He would not stand in front of a real, breathing lion until a journey to the Netherlands nearly 30 years later, where he finally drew one from life.