There may be no more iconic painting than Leonardo da Vinci's (Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 779). This rendition was painted by Pompeo Coccia (d. 1960), a Professor at the University of Rome who spent time in Paris in the early twentieth century. Affixed to the painting's reverse is a handwritten note transcribing the stanza devoted to Leonardo in Charles Baudelaire's Fleurs du mal, thereby underscoring the painting's broad and enduring cultural appeal.¹

¹ The second stanza of "Les Phares" (The Beacons) reads: "Léonard de Vinci, miroir profond et sombre, / Où des anges charmants, avex un doux souris / Tout chargé de mystère, apparaissent à l’ombre / Des glaciers et des pins qui ferment leur pays" ("Leonardo da Vinci, dark, unfathomable mirror, in which charming an💧gels with sweet smiles full of mystery appear in the shadow of glaciers and pines that enclose their country.")