The Baptism of Christ

The Baptism of Christ emerged from Andrea del Verrocchio's Florence workshop around 1472-1475, with a young Leonardo da Vinci contributing what would become the painting's most celebrated element: the angel on the far left. Leonardo was roughly eighteen when he painted that figure, a kneeling youth with rosy cheeks and light hair caught by the wind. The face is delicate, sweet, rendered with a softness that stands apart from the harder forms around it.

Giorgio Vasari told a famous story about this collaboration. He claimed that when Verrocchio saw what his young apprentice had accomplished, he put down his brushes and never painted again. The truth is more practical. Verrocchio was already a renowned sculptor who'd taken on painting commissions as a sideline. He simply refocused on what he did best. But the anecdote captures something real about the gap in skill that emerged. Modern analysis suggests Leonardo contributed more than just the angel. The misty landscape, golden atmospheric light, and even portions of Christ's figure appear to be his work, painted in oils while the rest of the panel was executed in tempera.

The painting originally hung in the Church of San Salvi before moving to the Vallombrosan Sisterhood. It entered the Uffizi Gallery collection in 1959, where visitors can compare master and student side by side.