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Ten tips for giving effective art history presentations

The PowerPoint presentation is a standard way of sharing academic research in the art history field. Presentations are given at professional conferences, academic talks, and everyday classes at graduate and undergraduate college levels. Topics in art history will almost always be heavily visual, so it is important to know how word and image go together to create powerful presentations.

Generally speaking, art history presentations are based upon academic papers that have already been written. The presenter stands up front and reads from a script while flipping through individual slides. The presentation can last from about 5 minutes to 45 minutes, but most of them will likely be around 20 minutes. There may then be a few minutes for questions at the end.

So how do you create an effective art history presentation? Here are ten tips to help guide you.

1. Have a special script ready

You should not read your academic paper verbatim. Rather, prepare a special script based on your paper and cut out non-essential parts so that you can fit it inside the time limits. Edit sentences which do not flow easily when spoken. You’d be surprised to find that words written for an academic paper do not always sound pleasant to the ears when spoken to an audience.

2. Engage your audience

Even though you will be reading your presentation from a script, make sure to look up at your audience frequently. Insert pauses in your delivery from time to time, and avoid rambling on at the same speed through the entire presentation. When appropriate, you may want to depart from your script and give ad-libbed explanations for certain slides, such as maps or other images that are difficult to understand. This breaks up any monotony that may have developed and helps to draw the audience back into your discussion.

3. Know how slides and script interact

If your presentation is heavily visual, let the slides lead the way, and don’t get caught up in too much theory that departs from the images you are showing. You may want to modify your academic paper enough so that what you say corresponds to the image on the screen. In presentations which are not so reliant on images, you may want to show a blank slide when you are discussing something which is theoretical for which you have no corresponding slide. This shifts the audience’s attention away from the screen and directly on to you, the speaker. Just don’t use this too often, and don’t end your presentation on a blank slide.

4. Organize your slides well

You will want to spend roughly the same time per each slide, and you will want to keep the time per slide somewhat limited. In a 20 minute presentation, 2-3 minutes max is fine. Longer than that may make your audience drift off. A slide per minute is also acceptable, but ten seconds on a slide is probably too little for your viewers to see and understand what’s on the screen.

5. Select quality images

Whichever kind of image you use – maps, artifacts, old photos, etc. – try to get the best quality image you can. Although this is not the time for creative photography show-and-tell, presenting images which give some visual delight will make a bigger impact on your audience. With this in mind, use images which are large on the screen in terms of pixels. Don’t use images that overly small, and don’t try to resize small images to make them larger. That can lead to pixelation, which makes for blurry images and a poor visual experience.

6. Black on back, and simple is good

I have found that a solid black background is the best for viewing images. Also, avoid using fancy transitions between slides, such as the “fly in” or “fly out”, since they can get distracting. Use a simple font that is legible from a distance, and use the same font throughout your slides.

7. Limit your text on screen

I have seen this done incorrectly even at high-level presentations, and I don’t like it. Don’t include a bunch of text on the screen (e.g. a passage from a text) unless you will be reading that text out loud to your audience. The audience will naturally try to read the text if you show it on a slide, and so if you’re making some other spoken point at the same time, your audience will tune out what you’re saying.

8. Less is more

If your time limit is 20 minutes for the presentation, you will want to practice so that you can do it in 18 minutes. Why is this? It’s what I like to call the “Magic Two Minutes”. These are the mysterious two minutes that somehow find their way into your actual presentation that weren’t there when you practiced. In other words, your actual presentation may very well take longer than it took during rehearsal. During your live presentation, you might be a bit nervous, you might have a problem with a slide, or you might take a bit more time to point to something on a slide. The last thing you want to do is to rush through a presentation by speeding up your delivery, so instead shorten your presentation in advance.

9. Get your timing down

You don’t want to go over your allotted time. If you are given 20 minutes for a presentation, stick to it. In professional conferences which are tightly scheduled, going over your allotted time may throw all the subsequently-scheduled presentations off, which is not a nice thing to do. A good idea is to keep little time annotations on your script so that you can easily tell how well you’re doing. If your presentation needs to be under 20 minutes and you have five pages of script to read, you may want to write “4:oo” at the bottom of page 1, “7:30” at the bottom of page 2, “11:30” at the bottom of page 3, and so forth. Then, when it comes time to give your presentation, simply start a timer (use your watch or phone) when you begin, and by minute 4:00, know that you need to be at the bottom of page 1. By the 7:30 mark on the timer, you need to have reached the bottom of page 2, and so forth. Of course, you can only know what time annotations to use if you have already practiced your presentation in advance and finished it under the 20-minute limit while keeping track of your pace. This leads us to the all-important last tip, which is…

10. Practice

Some practice is needed for any type of presentation. The more important the presentation is, the more crucial the practice becomes. For professional conferences, you should practice your script quite a few times and to keep making adjustments to get your timing down. Read your presentation out loud, to yourself, or preferably to someone else. Have someone else monitor you for the times you say “um”, slouch over, or tap your pen against the table/podium. These are small things that can add up to give a bad impression, so you should eliminate these through practicing your presentation multiple times.

The main goal of your presentation is to communicate your ideas clearly to others. By using these ten tips for giving art history presentations, you can effectively convey your ideas in a professional, polished way.

Four ways to find art history paper topics

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Every student who takes art history courses will sooner or later be assigned the task of writing a research paper. Sometimes your professor may assigned the specific topic you write on, but at other times you are responsible for formulating your own research idea. Developing this idea can make or break your entire paper; a bad idea can lead to nights of frustration and a weak thesis, and a great idea can lead to an exciting paper which not only motivates you to study the topic now, but also in future classes, and perhaps even into graduate school. So how does one go about developing a research idea in art history? Here are a few ways to begin a hypothetical 10-page paper:

The book report

Pick a single topic (work of art, building, artist, patron, etc.) that you are not terribly familiar with, and write five pages about it, answering basic questions about historical, artistic, and/or social context. Because you are not starting out with any unusual theory or compelling argument, this approach may seem unexciting or even bland. However, by the time you finish writing the first several pages on this topic, you will likely have gained new insights into the topic that you would not have learned had you simply skimmed the material on the topic. In the remaining 5+ pages on the topic you still need to write, expound upon some interesting aspect that you discovered and wrote about in the first five pages. The strength of this approach is that it requires you to master a single topic before you comment intelligently on it, thereby making your overall paper all the more convincing.

Comparing two or more topics in the same paper

This is similar to the book report, except the purpose is to compare and contrast at least two works/buildings/artists and draw conclusions from them. For example, you could compare Andrea del Castagno’s painting of the Last Supper (c. 1447) with Leonardo da Vinci’s painting (1495-98) of the same subject. How did the interpretation of this scene change over fifty years? How did it remained the same? Or, you could compare three different state-built churches in a particular city within a particular time period. How did each reflect the attitudes of the government of its time? The possibilities for this kind of paper can be endless.

The unknown answer

Pose a question that is out of the ordinary and that you do not know the answer to, and attempt to answer it. For example – “How did Leonardo da Vinci treat food in his art?” Or, “How did Italian artists develop painted shadows during the fifteenth century?” Or, “Was Michelangelo influenced more by Roman or Greek art?” The trick is to formulate a distinct question that leads your investigation. Make sure that your question is open-ended enough that the answer isn’t overly-simple, but narrow enough that you are tackling a topic that can be addressed in a paper of this size. If you find the answer is too simple, consider researching the development of the issue. If you find the answer is impossible to discover without writing a dissertation, write a paper explaining the limits of our knowledge, and potential ways to find answers.

The ready-made topic

If you cannot come up with your own topic, ask your professor or instructor for some ideas. Any decent professor will make time available for students, and particularly for students who need help generating topic ideas. To make the most of your time, approach him or her with some preferences in mind. For example, would you like to write your paper on painting, sculpture, or architecture? Are you interested in the works from a particular time period (e.g. late 1300s, early 1500s, etc.) or a particular region (e.g. Florence, Venice, Siena, etc.)? Do you have an artist or subject matter in mind on which you would like to focus? If you have some preliminary preparation before meeting with your professor, he or she will likely be better able to help you and will appreciate the work that you have already undertaken. After deciding on a topic, make sure to ask for the titles of a few key books or articles you should consult to help you get started.

Note: be careful about writing a paper on the same topic as your professor’s dissertation or other primary area of focus. Not only might your paper prove to be inadequate by your professor’s understandably high standards, but you could be given an overabundance of ideas, issues, or resources to deal with when you simply want to write a manageable paper.

Preparing for success

A research paper can be a nightmare, but it really doesn’t have to be. By planning out a good topic in advance, you set yourself up for less stress, better grades, and overall success.

Nicola Pisano’s Baptistery Pulpit in Pisa

Early Renaissance, Sculpture

Nicola Pisano, Baptistery Pulpit, Pisa Cathedral, 1259-61

Changes in styles or movements in the history of art are often the result of gradual phenomena, so the creation of new works which signal sudden changes are particularly significant. One such work which art historians point to as signaling a turning point in Western sculpture is the pulpit for the Pisa baptistery, created by Nicola Pisano from 1259-1261. The pulpit contains the first sculpted reliefs of its kind and is a work that is considered to mark the beginning of an entirely new phase within the history of art. It is the incipient work of the proto-Renaissance, one which foreshadowed the great works of Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Despite this association of the pulpit with Renaissance sculpture, it was completed contemporaneously with works that fell stylistically within the timeframe of Gothic art, which by the mid-thirteenth century had spread well beyond its origin of the Île-de-France.

Pisano Pulpit Pisa photo — The baptistery pulpit is located on the south side of the building. In this photo, it is to the left of the baptismal font.
Photo by Fr James Bradley (cc)

Lions circling crouching humans at the base of the pulpit.
Photo

Nicola’s pulpit is presently located in the Pisa baptistery on the southern side of the building, or to the left of the font, though originally it was probably located to the right of the font (see photo). The pulpit takes the shape of a hexagon elevated on seven columns, six of which form a ring around its outer portion while one stands in the center. At the base of three of these columns are sculpted lions which look inward at the base of the middle column, on which sculpted figures are huddled low in crouching positions. These figures have been interpreted in different ways by scholars; one interpretation holds that they represent the pagan forces that are controlled by Christianity, while at the base of three of the outer columns are lions ravishing their prey. Alternatively, the middle figures have been interpreted as Old Testament figures (Noah, Daniel, and Job) who represent the pre-Christian world, and the lions have been seen to represent Virtues on account of their nurturing natures. In either case, it is clear that the pulpit’s iconographic program has been imbued with Christian ideals which frame the way in which the structure was meant to be viewed by the public.

The free-standing design and hexagonal shape of the pulpit make it structurally distinctive compared to the majority of pulpits that preceded it. In Tuscany, pulpits tended to be rectangular prior to this time, although some polygonal pulpits did appear in minor churches in nearby Italian regions. Two examples of traditional pulpit design can be seen at San Miniato al Monte in Florence from 1207, and at San Cristoforo in Barga from the mid-thirteenth century. According to one scholar, the reason for the hexagonal shape of the Pisa baptistery pulpit was due to the peculiar plan of the building, which was a round baptistery rather than a basilica with flat walls. Nicola would have recognized the lower level of compatibility of a rectangular pulpit situated near an octagonal baptismal font, both of which were in a centralized space. Thus, it was simple artistic convention affected by the associated circumstances of the architectural surroundings which at least partially influenced the basic structure of Nicola’s pulpit.

At the top of the columns of the Pisa baptistery pulpit are capitals adorned with prominent acanthus leaves, indicating a variation on the classical Corinthian order. Resting on top of the outer ring of columns are rounded arches and a carved trilobe pattern attached to their soffits. The place where the pulpit rests on top of the columns is decorated with sculpted virtue figures over the capitals and prophets in the adjacent spandrels. Virtually every inch of the spandrels and corners above the capitals are adorned with sculpted reliefs.

While the configuration of the pulpit introduced some new features to thirteenth-century sculpture, Nicola made even greater strides forward in his narrative panels and sculpted figures on the pulpit. The scenes on the panels depict the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation in the Temple, the Crucifixion, and the Last Judgment. Thematically, these scenes relate to the idea of Christian Redemption, beginning with the creation of Christ’s earthly reign. In presenting this, his focus was on the human figure, and each of the panels recalls the classical past.

Nicola-Pisano-Pisa-Pulpit-3 — Nativity scene, panel from the Pisa baptistery pulpit.
Photo

These first two panel narrative scenes, the Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi, were typical pulpit scenes in Tuscany but here Nicola gave them a natural feel which was novel for the time. In the former, he based his image of Mary on a form from Etruscan tomb sculpture and in the latter he borrowed from a sarcophagus image of the Phaedra to depict her. The folds in the garments of the Adoration Virgin become thick, and he even drew from a Greek precedent to depict one of the men in this scene. Also in the Adoration, Nicola depicted the Christ Child not in an iconic way but as a chubby baby who reaches out for the gifts of the Magi. The horses in the scene are also depicted naturally, with pair to the top having flared nostrils and enlarged veins as if they had just come to a stop. Nicola carved the facial hair and coiffures of the kings in classical form while their drapery does not hide their moving bodies.

In the panel of the Presentation in the Temple, Nicola shows the account from Luke 2 in which Mary and Joseph take the Christ Child to the temple for his circumcision according to the law of Moses (Figure 8). Here, the main characters of the story are situated most conspicuously: Joseph carrying the pair of doves, Mary, and Simeon with the Christ Child in his arms. To the right of Simeon is Anna the prophetess with a scroll in her hand. Of uncertain identity is the man to her right, whose left arms is held up by a boy. It has been suggested that this man is either Simeon represented again, or an allusion to Mary’s Purification.

crucifixion depicted on Nicola Pissano photo — The Crucifixion, panel from the Pisa baptistery pulpit.
Photo by Fr James Bradley (cc)

The Crucifixion scene depicts more classically-inspired figures within an interesting iconographic scheme. Christ is nailed to a cross made of tree limbs rather than posts, something which points to the idea of the Tree of Life and the future rather than the current victory of Jesus which was more typical. Three nails go through his body, rather than four, which alludes to the Trinity. While this had been done before in other parts of Europe, it was unique to Italy. Also, the figure of the Virgin, as she falls into the arms of the other women under the weight of much grief, adds something new to the iconography of this scene.

One of the more interesting changes, and a departure from many Gothic depictions, is Nicola’s composition of the Last Judgment scene (Figure 10). The scene depicts Christ with the good souls on one side and the bad on the other, but in this particular depiction the two sides are given a disproportionate amount of space. Here, it is the good who have benefited, as they received a greater portion of the scene, a feature which is atypical in Last Judgment imagery. It has been suggested that this thematic alteration may be due to a new-found sense of mercy that Christ extends to mankind, echoed by the placement of Mary at the right hand of Christ. At the same time, included in this scene is an image of hell, which may serve to even out the disparity because of the sizable area given to the good.

Nicola-Pisano-Pisa-Pulpit-4 — Fortitude, capital figure from the Pisa baptistery pulpit.
Photo

Apart from the narrative panels, the sculpted figures standing on top of the column capitals stand prominently in view and carry on the use of antique forms in the pulpit. While the exact source of Fortitude, depicted in contrapposto stance, is unclear, it is evident that this is nevertheless classically-inspired and constitutes a new use of the nude figure, since nudity had previously been reserved for use in specific situations such as the Last Judgment and the Book of Genesis. Whereas Fortitude had traditionally been depicted through accessories, here Nicola depicted the virtue through a Herculean bodily form.

Aside from the anthropomorphic carvings, there are several other notable sculpted items on the pulpit. Each relief is set in a frame of red marble and separated from one another horizontally by groups of colonnettes. The grouping of three colonettes that separate the panels of the pulpit are French in origin, a motif that Nicola may have taken from his time in Apulia. Of these colonnette groupings, one of them differs because of the insertion of the desk into this place. The desk, which consists of an angled surface on a vertical structure, is typical of Italian pulpits and is normally supported by the outstretched wings of a sculpted eagle. The eagle, which is the symbol of St. John the Evangelist, was normally depicted along with the symbols of the other Gospel writers in close arrangement on the vertical support; however, in the Pisa baptistery pulpit, Nicola omitted these other symbols and instead left the eagle alone, grasping a critter in its talons.

Considering the pulpit as a whole, already it is possible to see several advancements made in Nicola’s approach to his work, such as the aforementioned freestanding nature and shape of the pulpit. But it is truly when this was combined with the sculptural program that we can consider it as being a truly groundbreaking work. The pulpit contrasts with some other pulpits in the region, such as the pulpit in San Giovanni Fuorcivitas in Pistoia, where Fra Guglielmo also copied sarcophagus sculpture but did so in a way that Pope-Hennessy says utilized a lesser degree of undercutting and achieved a more elementary expressive impact. Also, it contrasts with the pulpit at San Leonardo in Arcetri, whose reliefs show garments that do not respond to the contours of the body but instead merely fall in lines to convey shape.

The narrative reliefs also provide us with the traditional explanation for the break between what is considered “Gothic” on one hand, and “proto-Renaissance” on the other. Typical of Tuscan art, the narratives are heavily populated with figures, but here their bodies are fully depicted, similar to the way figures were represented in Roman sarcophagi. The bodily features of the figures on the reliefs are thick, and their many garments fall in a way that indicates the parts of their bodies underneath. While Nicola was not the first artist to take from classical sources in sculpture, he did so in a more complete and comprehensive way unlike that of his predecessors. Tuscan sculptors would sometimes use ancient ideas in their sculpture, but in a sporadic way. They did not use it in a comprehensive manner, at least until Nicola started doing so. Nicola’s intention was not to use classical sculptural ideas to supplement what was already existing in thirteenth century sculpture, but to come up with an entirely new style for the age, though one which was based on the past.

Titian’s Pastoral Concert

High Renaissance, Painting

Titian, Pastoral Concert, c. 1508-1510, oil on canvas

The great painting in the Louvre entitled the Pastoral Concert (also the Pastoral Symphony and the Fête champêtre) is mysterious both in meaning and in authorship, but it has been one of the more influential paintings in the museum, particularly on nineteenth-century painters who came to Paris to see it. It has been attributed to the greatest of Venetian painters, Titian, as well as to one of his teachers in Venice, Giorgione (it was first attributed to Giorgione in 1671). Scholars have gone back and forth over the years in their opinions about which artist painted the scene, but recently the tide has favored Titian as the hand responsible for the work at a rather early point in his career (Titian would continue to paint for over sixty years after the Pastoral Concert was completed). The canvas itself was not cleaned for many years, and so in photographs it will come across as having a yellowish tint. However, when the painting was completed in the early sixteenth century, the colors most likely were much more vibrant and distinct.

No one knows for sure exactly what is portrayed in the mysterious subject matter, but it appears to be a depiction of allegory. The main figures are two men who are seated on the grass against a vast countryside setting. Titian was really only interested in landscapes like this early in his career, and in later paintings he reduced the amount of visible landscape, or got rid of it altogether. In the setting here, the man on the left is dressed in the red clothing worn by nobles of the period and seems to be playing a lute, and the man on the right wears a simpler brown costume more typical of peasantry. Off in the distance, we see another man entering the picture; a shepherd arrives from the right along with his herd.

The men are turned toward each other as they engage in conversation and seem oblivious to the other conspicuous figures in the scene – two plump, nude women. While the one on the left is in the process of pouring water from a glass pitcher into a well, the one of the right has just paused her activity of playing a flute while sitting right in front of the men. The fact that the females are not noticed, and are rather comfortable in their lack of clothing, suggests that they are no ordinary women but instead supernatural persons. The use of these kinds of figures – whether they be specific deities or general personifications of ideas or places – originated in the classical world and was commonplace in ancient Roman art. Here, the immortal females seem to be present yet invisible in the presence of the men at the particular moment being portrayed.

The bodies of the females may be considered overly plump by modern-day conceptions of ideal body form, but they would have been considered ideal for Titian’s time. Titian may have copied them from actual models, or perhaps from classical statues, and he seems to have emphasized their curvy bodies by using curvy forms in the billowing trees and hills in the landscape. He also painted the females so that the viewer not only sees one from the front, but also from the back. The viewer therefore gets a glimpse of the nude female form from different perspectives, rather than just from the front. This was a new contribution to painting by Titian, as he was the first painter to depict a nude figure from her backside in such a prominent manner.

Taken the figures and setting as a whole, what might the scene depict? Because there is no written evidence which provides a basis for its content, and because the painting seems to have been an original idea and did not directly copy another painting, the overall meaning is not entirely clear. However, one interpretation given to the female figures is that they are muses, the divine figures who inspire mortals, and the instruments that are being played allude to poetry. The music that is by the figures creates a type of harmony in this setting that echoes the larger harmony found in the universe, thereby linking the activiteis in this scene to the cosmos. This interpretation, however, is complicated by the arrival of the shepherd off in the distance, which interrupts the harmony of the music. It may be the case that the shepherd symbolizes the person of lesser learning or class, who is unable to appreciate the sophistication of the music enjoyed by the two main figures. Thus, according to this view, the Pastoral Concert provides not only a glimpse into a peaceful, utopian activity incorporating a classical understanding, but also perhaps a lesson on the means by which one may arrive at this world – through scholarship and understanding, something which the uneducated man does not possess.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks

High Renaissance, Painting

Leonardo da Vinci, Virgin of the Rocks, c. 1483, oil on wood

In April of 1483, the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception commissioned Leonardo to paint the Virgin of the Rocks as part of an altarpiece for its chapel in the church of San Francesco Grande in Milan. The painting was done on a wooden panel which was meant to be placed within a larger sculpted altarpiece for the chapel. Oil paints were used for the pigments. At this time in the late fifteenth century, oil was still a new medium which had only recently been adopted by Italian painters. It had been used with much success for decades by painters in northern Europe, such as Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, who were able to capture detail on a microscopic level and convey a sense of realism that was unattainable using other types of pigment. Now that oil paints had arrived in Italy, Leonardo was able to use them to great advantage to create the Virgin of the Rocks, one of the great early masterpieces using this media in the Italian peninsula.

For the painting’s composition, Leonardo placed several figures in a basic pyramidal arrangement. The placement of figures in this way reflected the typical approach taken by other Renaissance artists working in the pictorial arts, such as Lorenzo Ghiberti in his competition panel for the bronze doors of the Florence baptistery, and Masaccio in the Holy Trinity fresco in the side chapel of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Here, the patrons had requested that Leonardo include the Virgin Mary, the Christ Child, and at least one angel, but in order to give better balance to the scene Leonardo included the figure of John the Baptist as well.

The identification of the child figures may be confusing to the modern viewer in part because they are not accompanied by obvious iconographic clues revealing their identifies. The figure on the left is St. John, and the figure seated on the right is Christ. Adding to this confusion is the fact that not only is the Christ Child not seated in the Virgin’s lap, but she is not even touching her son. Instead, her hand is on the back of St. John, who knees in adoration toward his cousin. Christ, in turn, blesses St. John.

The gestures and glances among the figures results in a more dynamic portrayal of the Virgin and Child that seen in earlier Renaissance paintings. Whereas a painting such as Masaccio’s Holy Trinity showed figures which related to one another to a limited degree, Leonardo has created a scene in which all the figures interact through gestures and glances to create a more unified whole. The angel on the right glances out at the viewer while pointing at St. John, whose gaze toward Christ provides a main focal point of the painting. The Virgin also gazes down at her son, and the placement of her left hand reinforces the emphasis on Christ. The connection between the Virgin and St. John is then made by the placement of her right hand. Thus, although the pyramidal composition is something that had been employed by Renaissance artists for decades, the way Leonardo made all the figures interact in a naturally-engaging way is different.

In addition to the dynamism of the figural group, the Virgin of the Rocks is also noteworthy for its rocky, almost mysterious setting in which the figures are placed. It is not the type of heavenly space symbolized by the golden background of older altarpieces, such as those by Cimabue, Giotto, or Duccio. Nor is it an idealistic landscape that can be found in Fra Filippo Lippi’s painting of the Virgin and Child. Instead, it is dark, misty, and cavernous. On the left side in the distance, the forms become less distinct as they get lost in a haze of foggy atmosphere, which illustrates the implementation of aerial perspective. The very smooth transition between colors and between light and dark that Leonardo used in this painting is called sfumato, which means “smoky”. Not only is it visible in the landscape, but also in the figures, who are cast in light which smoothly turns into areas of dark shade. It is similar to the traditional chiaroscuro technique used by earlier Italian painters, but it is more refined and elevated to convey a higher level of visual realism.

This painting is one of Leonardo’s early masterpieces, and it shows his reliance on traditional Italian Renaissance pictorial devices but also his movement beyond this tradition. If you want to see this painting today, you can do so by visiting the Louvre in Paris, France. Alternatively, you can see another version of this same painting in the National Gallery, London, which was likely a copy made by Leonardo in the mid-1490s.