The Madonna Litta is a late 15th-century painting, traditionally attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. It depicts the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the Christ child, a devotional subject known as the Madonna lactans. The figures are set in a dark interior with two arched openings, as in Leonardo's earlier Madonna of the Carnation, and a mountainous landscape in aerial perspective can be seen beyond. In his left hand Christ holds a goldfinch, which is symbolic of his future Passion. Scholarly opinion is divided on the work's attribution, with some believing it to be the work of a pupil of Leonardo such as Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio or Marco d'Oggiono; the Hermitage Museum, however, considers the painting to be an autograph work by Leonardo. The painting takes its name from the House of Litta, a Milanese noble family in whose collection it was for much of the nineteenth century. History The Madonna Litta might be one of the paintings of the Madonna and Child recorded in Leonardo's studio before or during his first Milanese period (1481–1483 to 1499). On a drawing in the Uffizi Leonardo noted that he had begun “two Virgin Maries” in late 1478 and an inventory of his studio written in 1482 (part of the Codex Atlanticus) again mentions two paintings of “Our Lady”. The second of these is, according to different interpretations, either noted as being “almost finished, in profile” or “finished, almost in profile”. The Virgin's head in the Madonna Litta could be described either way, and it has therefore been argued that the painting was begun in Leonardo's first Florentine period and left unfinished until it was later worked up by a pupil in Milan. Scientific analysis of the painting has, however, suggested that it was produced by only one artist. Several drawings have been identified as preparatory to the Madonna Litta. One, which is universally attributed to Leonardo, is a metalpoint drawing of a young woman's face in near profile, part of the Codex Vallardi in the Louvre. There is evidence that this sheet was used as an exemplum for teaching pupils in Leonardo’s workshop; on the reverse another artist has traced the outline of the face in pen and ink, a technique Leonardo himself used when developing compositions. Further evidence of pupils copying the drawing comes in the form of a direct copy, by a rather uncertain draughtsman, on a