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Photo courtesy of Jolson PR
By Kathy Lovin
Metal castings of the only three-dimensional work Leonardo da Vinci ever created—a beeswax sculpture of a horse and rider made 504 years ago—are now set to benefit The Salvation Army.
Previously in the hands of da Vinci’s apprentice and his family through the 1930s, the sculpture was then sent to Switzerland before Richard Lewis, an American collector, purchased it in 1985. Lewis wasn’t sure what he had or what to do with it, but eventually asked the Chair of Leonardo Studies at UCLA to authenticate the piece. It was indeed a work of da Vinci.
The American Fine Arts Foundry then spent three years studying the beeswax sculpture before making a working mold of it. Several hundred metal castings were made from the mold, and the original beeswax and master bronze sculpture was recently unveiled in Los Angeles.
Lewis is selling the castings to interested collectors and donating $1 million of the proceeds to The Salvation Army’s substance abuse program.
The new sculpture will also be displayed in New York, London and Las Vegas.
