page_title: La Scapigliata
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: La Scapigliata / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Leonardo da Vinci -'La Scapigliata' (a detail of the jaw and neck)
context_page_description: La Scapigliata is an unfinished painting generally attributed to the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, and dated c. 1506–8. Painted in oil, umber and white lead pigments on a poplar wood panel, its attribution remains controversial, with several experts attributing the work to a student of Leonardo. The painting has been admired for its captivating beauty, mysterious demeanor, and mastery of sfumato.
  There is no real consensus on the painting's subject, date, history or purpose. It shows an unknown woman gazing downward while her hair fills the frame behind her. No theory of the subject has been widely accepted, but many have been proposed, such as the painting being a sketch for an uncompleted painting of Saint Anne, a study for the London version of The Virgin of the Rocks or Leda and the Swan painting, now a lost work.
  The painting was recorded in a 1826 sale of Gaetano Callani's collection to the Galleria Nazionale di Parma, the museum the currently houses it, but proof of its existence may date back to 1531. Most scholars attribute it as a work by Leonardo da Vinci and it has been listed as such in various major Leonardo exhibitions.
context_section_description: The work's true intent is unknown and it has been variously referred to as a sketch, a drawing or a painting. Due to the use of paint, it is correctly described as a painting, but scholars continue to discuss its sketch and drawing like qualities, often liking it to early works such as the Adoration of the Magi and Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, as well as later ones like The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist. Art historian Carmen Bambach suggests that it should be described as a "brush drawing", or a "painted sketch".
  The painting is done on a small 24.6 cm × 21.0 cm (9.7 in × 8.3 in) poplar wood panel with oil, umber, and white lead pigments. It portrays the unfinished outline of a young woman whose face gently gazes downward while her loosely drawn dishevelled hair waves in the air behind her. The woman's eyes are half-closed and completely ignoring of the outside world and viewer, while her mouth is slightly shaped into an ambiguous smile, evocative of the Mona Lisa. Other than her face that takes up most of the painting, the rest of the painting is barely even sketched in, with a primed but unpainted background. The differences in the face and the rest of the painting are effectively blended by a mastery of sfumato. Art historian Alexander Nagel notes that the sfumato results in the shadows concealing any strokes or marks. Nagel also points out how the shadows are softened by careful lighting around them, such as on the left side of the jaw. The appeal in this contrast of the unfinished and finished parts has provoked speculation that the painting is not incomplete, and was left in an unfinished state on purpose.
  The subject of the painting is unknown and no theory has proved convincing to modern scholars. One theory is that the painting is a study for Leonardo's lost painting of Leda and the Swan, but this is discredited by existing copies of the painting showing Lena with hair more elaborate than that of the woman in La Scapigliata. Other claims are that the painting was a sketch, like The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist, for a painting of Saint Anne that was never completed, or a study for the London version of the Virgin of the Rocks. According to experts at the Galleria Nazionale di Parma,  the subject of the painting may be an anonymous woman.
caption: Detail of sfumato in La Scapigliata
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