Leonardo Da Vinci (i)

• Year : 1515
• Media : Oil (i)

Musée du Louvre (Paris, France) (i)

Bacchus, formerly Saint John the Baptist, in the Musée du Louvre is based on a drawing by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci but is presumed to have been executed by an unknown follower, perhaps in Leonardo's workshop. Sidney J. Freedberg assigns the drawing to Leonardo's second Milan period. Among the Lombard painters who have been suggested as possible authors are Cesare da Sesto, Marco d'Oggiono, Francesco Melzi, and Cesare Bernazzano. The painting shows a male figure with garlanded head and leopard skin, seated in an idyllic landscape. He points with his right hand off to the right, and with his left hand grasps his thyrsus. The painting originally depicted John the Baptist. In the late seventeenth century, between the years 1683 and 1693, it was overpainted and altered, to serve as Bacchus.