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No one knows exactly how old he was when he began his apprenticeship in Florence under Andrea Verrochio, but usually new students began in their early teens (12-14) and it is very likely Leonardo followed this trend. His first solo commissions, 'Annunciation' and 'The Baptism of Christ' were not given to him until 1472-75 (he would have been about 20-23 at the time), although he and other students helped with larger works whilst training in the studio/atelier and there is a small dog in 'Tobias And The Angel' (by Verrochio) that is thought by some people to have been painted by Leonardo whilst he was training in Verrochio's studio. So he probably had roughly a decade of constant training (there was no 35-hour-week laws then, so he would have lived and breathed art 24/7) before starting out on his own as an artist. True genius takes a hell of a lot of hard work, aside from any natural god-given talent. You can see mistakes in his earliest works that show this. Have a look at Mary's right arm in the 'Annunciation' and her third leg (or very wide chair!). He obviously had a lot of talent and tons of training, but perfected his skill later on. In another of his earliest works around the same age, 'Madonna & Child With Pomegranite', the toddler looks slightly demented and is very much out of proportion. Only 20 or so completed paintings exist in total by Da Vinci and it is possible that other earlier works would have shown the same mistakes. As far as I know, these are the earliest paintings by Da Vinci, created around the time he was starting out as an artist.

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16y ago

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