Leonardo Da Vinci's Madonna Litta The Madonna Litta is one of the great paintings by Leonardo da Vinci. There are numerous replicas of the Madonna Litta by other Renaissance painters, and Leonardo da Vinci's own preliminary sketch of Madonna's head in the Louvre. The Child's awkward posture, however, led some scholars to attribute parts of the painting to Leonardo's pupil Boltraffio. Other clues that contribute to the fact that Leonardo da Vinci had the Madonna Litta completed by one of his pupils include the harsh outlines of the Madonna and Child, as well as the plain landscape. Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna Litta was painted sometime in the 1480s for the Visconti rulers of Milan and soon passed to the Litta family, in whose possession the painting would remain for centuries. In 1865, Alexander II of Russia acquired da Vinci's Madonna Litta from Count Litta, quondam minister to St Petersburg, and deposited the painting in the Hermitage Museum, where it has been exhibited to this day. Leonardo da Vinci Home Page