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LEONARDO da Vinci: Allegory with wolf and eagle

🖼 Allegory with wolf and eagle, c. 1516
Red chalk on paper
170 × 280 cm
Windsor, United Kingdom

Predatory tension animates this allegorical composition, where wolf and eagle lock in symbolic struggle rendered through Leonardo's characteristic sfumato. The work embodies Renaissance philosophy on virtue versus vice, revealing Leonardo's intellectual engagement beyond engineering and anatomy into moral and political allegory.

The story of art
The story of art
E. H. Gombrich
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