A Virgem das Rochas

In 1483 a religious brotherhood in Milan, the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, hired Leonardo to paint the centre of an altarpiece for their chapel. What followed was one of the longest disputes in art. Leonardo and the brothers argued over money for decades. He seems to have sold his first version, the one now in the Louvre, to another buyer, and only much later delivered this second one to satisfy the contract. It was finally in place around 1508, some 25 years after the commission. The scene has puzzled people ever since. The Virgin Mary kneels in a strange grotto of wet rock, sheltering two babies, the infant Christ and the young John the Baptist, with an angel beside them. There is no manger, no Bethlehem, none of the usual props. Leonardo sets it all in a cave of carefully studied stone and plants, lit as if by a low, cool daylight leaking in from somewhere behind the rocks.