Opening today, on what would have been Leonardo da Vinci's 563rd birthday, the exhibition "Leonardo da Vinci and the Idea of Beauty" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The show will feature a recently rediscovered self-portrait of the artist and a suite of masterpieces by Leonardo including the long-admired "Head of a Young Woman (Study for the Angel in the 'Virgin of the Rocks')," a metalpoint drawing from the 1480s, widely renowned for its naturalism, and which art historian Kenneth Clark called the “most beautiful . . . in the world."
The exhibition marks a rare opportunity to see "Head of a Young Woman," in the US. The work, which Bernard Berenson believed was “one of the finest achievements of all draughtsmanship," belongs to the Biblioteca Reale in Turin, Italy.
