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Primary sourcePaintingc. 1500 (drawing); slide made between 1839 and 1939

Study of a Tree

Leonardo da Vinci · c. 1500 (drawing); slide made between 1839 and 1939

A pen-and-ink drawing by Leonardo da Vinci of a tree, photographed as a glass lantern slide used for art-history teaching.

An original drawing by Leonardo himself, showing his close observation of nature.

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Lantern slide showing a pen-and-ink study of a leafless-to-sparsely-leafed tree with a thick trunk and many branching limbs, drawn on pale paper. Labels read Vinci, Etude d'arbre, Dessin, Windsor Royal Library, B 5984, and Universite de Louvain.
Leonardo da Vinci, Study of a Tree, c. 1500. Photographic lantern slide, Université de Louvain/KU Leuven, original held at Windsor Castle.

About this source

What it is

This is a photographic lantern slide of a pen-and-ink drawing by Leonardo da Vinci showing a study of a tree, made around 1500. The original drawing is kept in the Royal Library at Windsor; this slide, made between 1839 and 1939 by an unknown photographer, was used for teaching art history at the Université de Louvain.

Why it matters

Leonardo filled many notebooks with careful studies of plants, water, and anatomy, driven by his intense curiosity about the natural world. This tree study shows his skill at observing branching structures and his habit of recording nature directly from life, which fed into both his art and his scientific interests.

Look closer

  • What details of the tree's branches and trunk has the artist chosen to emphasize?
  • Why might a drawing like this have been useful to Leonardo beyond just artistic practice?
  • What does the existence of a teaching slide tell you about how this drawing has been studied over time?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Leonardo da Vinci on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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