Leonardo Da Vinci treasures to be exhibited in Glasgow as part of Royal Collection tour

The head of a youth, c.1510, one of almost 150 drawings by Leonardo da Vinci will go on display (Royal Collection Trust/PA Wire)

THE 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death will be marked with simultaneous exhibitions across the UK featuring his “treasures” from the Royal Collection.

Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery will feature some of his works, which will also be shown in 11 other cities – Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Southampton and Sunderland, with another yet to be announced.

Leonardo da Vinci: A Life In Drawing will give the “widest-ever UK audience the opportunity to see the work” in February next year.

The drawings will then be brought together to form part of an exhibition of more than 200 works at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, in what is described as “the largest exhibition of Leonardo’s work in over 65 years”.

Studies of hands for the Adoration of the Magi c.1481, as seen under ultraviolet light (Royal Collection Trust/PA Wire)

The drawings reflect the Renaissance master’s interest in painting, sculpture, architecture, music, anatomy, engineering, cartography, geology and botany.

Charles II acquired 550 of the polymath’s drawings, which had been bound into a single album, and they have remained in the Royal Collection since the 17th century.

The skull sectioned, 1489 (Royal Collection Trust/PA Wire)

Martin Clayton, head of prints and drawings at the Royal Collection Trust, said: “None of Leonardo’s scientific work was ever published and, of his artistic work, only about 20 paintings survive today. But the common link to all his work was drawing.

“Leonardo drew incessantly throughout his life, not just to prepare his artistic projects but to spawn new ideas, record his observations and to test his theories on every subject under the sun.

“And because he hoarded thousands of drawings and pages of manuscripts right to the end of his life we have an unrivalled knowledge of the workings of Leonardo’s extraordinary mind.

“Leonardo’s most important drawings have been in the Royal Collection for more than 350 years.

“Because they have been protected from light, fire, insects… they are in almost pristine condition and among the greatest treasures of the Royal Collection and among the greatest artistic treasures of the United Kingdom.”

After the Buckingham Palace exhibition, a selection of 80 drawings will travel to the Queen’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse, in November 2019, the largest group of his works to be shown in Scotland.