Da Vinci exhibit deserves its accolades; not just for the paintings, but for context and big picture

Museum exhibitions can change lives. At least in the Ferrara family.

A touring collection of treasures from the Vatican museums in mymother's childhood (sent out to raise money for restorations after the trauma of WWII) set her on a firm path as an artist and art historian. During my senior year at university, I couldn't afford to get to Washington for The Treasure Houses of Britain exhibition. Later, descriptions of the show and its contents set a blueprint for holidays that eventually led to me settling in England. I suspect Leonardo Da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan will have life-changing effects on many. It is certainly a show that deserves the much overused accolade of "blockbuster".

This is the biggest show in London this year, and in recent memory. Its claim to fame is bringing together more Da Vinci paintings than have ever been on view in one place before. Given how few he actually finished, there's a good proportion of his work here.

For me, there were three specific highlights.

1. The Lady with the Ermine (Cecilia Gallerani). An incredibly famous work I never thought I'd see, as she lives in Krakow. More on her in a moment.
2. The two versions of the Virgin of the Rocks, one from the Louvre and ours from the National Gallery (below on the left, recently cleaned and restored to dramatic effect). I'd seen both of them before, but being able to stand between them and compare and contrast is fascinating.


3. A full-sized copy of the Last Supper done by one of Leonardo's pupils before the original started to deteriorate. I didn't even know this existed. It is supposed to be a remarkably accurate copy, giving you a sense of the colours, expressions and details that would have been in the original.

Curators are likely to add a fourth here: the revelation of a newly-authenticated, previously unknown Da Vinci called Salvator Mundi (saviour of the world, as in, a portrait of Jesus). It is fascinating, and interesting, but was a bit of an anti-climax for me after the aspects above. And even if it is by the master, it doesn't have the emotional depth and other-worldly beauty of some of the other pieces.

Despite the superlative of "most in one place ever", there are only nine of Leonardo's paintings here. For two ... both the Salvator Mundi and the Madonna Litta from the Hermitage ... the attribution is questionable. So how do you build a whole show around so few paintings, and make sure the punters get their money's worth? Adult tickets were almost £20, which is lofty.

Here's where you have to give the curators some real respect. Leonardo was as prolific with his sketching pencil as he was frugal with his paintbrush, and thanks to the Royal Collection and the British Museum, a large proportion of those sketches can be borrowed from resources just up the artistic road.

Thus in each room we have one or two of the masterpieces, surrounded by related sketches and works by Leonardo's pupils. It helps us to understand what drove the great man, how he

worked and how he influenced all of artistic life at the Sforza court.

The best illustration of this is the room anchored by two gorgeous portraits. One, La Belle Feronniere, is probably Ludovico Sforza's wife Beatrice d'Este. The other, the aforementioned Lady with the Ermine, is his 16-year-old mistress.

In both cases, Leonardo was more concerned with creating an ideal beauty than depicting reality. (And, frankly, both of these portraits are far more spectacularly beautiful than the Mona Lisa.) In the series of sketches we see not only how he created perfection with the women, with obsessive studies to find the perfect finger, forehead or

eyebrow line, but even how he applied his composite approach to the ermine.

A symbol of the Sforzas, having Cecilia hold one marked her as Ludovico's. Thus Da Vinci needed an idealised animal: strong, handsome, noble, sexual. We see sketches of dogs' paws, and a gorgeou

s study of a bear's head, all used to

create a gorgeous creature that's half ermine, half mythical beast and entirely memorable. I suspect Ludovico was pleased.

The approach is particularly effective with the true-to-life-sized copy of the Last Supper. I have been lucky enough to see the real thing three times and, frankly, seeing this copy and all the sketches was a lot more impressive. This is not to take anything away from Da Vinci or the valiant curatorial team at Santa Maria delle Grazie. It is a masterpiece. But it's a faded wreck, and the copy is a vivid glory. It hangs dramatically over the gallery, while all around you can see Leonardo's specific studies for different apostles' heads, feet and movements. It is a masterstroke of curation.

There is something beyond painting in the best of Da Vinci's work. Stand before the National Gallery's Virgin of the Rocks, pristine in is new restoration, gaze into the angel's face, and the room disappears. You don't sense people or the architecture around you, or the painting's frame, or even the rest of the scene. You're simply drawn in by that face, more beautiful and serene than anything in your real life. That, of course, is the point of both devotional paintings and idealised portraiture, but few artists really achieve it. Leonardo's work transports you to another reality.

If you don't already have tickets for this exhibition, I'm afraid you're unlikely to get in. All tickets through its close on 5 February are sold out. There are a handful of tickets released each day on a first come, first served basis, but the news reports people are queuing for three hours or more and they sell out quickly every day. Is this a show worth sleeping in a cold and rainy Trafalgar Square for? Quite possibly. I, for one, am glad I responded to the National Gallery's marketing and booked in June. In this case, advanced planning paid fine dividends.