Underdrawing in the context of "National Museum, Warsaw"

The Adoration of the Magi is an unfinished early painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo was given the commission by the Augustinian monks of San Donato in Scopeto [it] in Florence in 1481, but he departed for Milan the following year, leaving merely more than the preparatory underdrawing in charcoal, ink and watercolor. It has been in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence since 1670.

In art a predella (plural predelle) is the lowest part of an altarpiece, sometimes forming a platform or step, and the painting or sculpture along it, at the bottom of an altarpiece, sometimes with a single much larger main scene above, but often (especially in earlier examples), a polyptych or multipanel altarpiece. In late medieval and Renaissance altarpieces, where the main panel consisted of a scene with large figures, it was normal to include a predella below with a number of small-scale narrative paintings depicting events from the life of the dedicatee, whether the Life of Christ, the Life of the Virgin or a saint. Typically there would be three to five small scenes, in a horizontal format. Sometimes a single space shows different scenes in continuous representation.

They are significant in art history, as the artist had more freedom from iconographic conventions than in the main panel as they could only be seen from close up. As the main panels themselves became larger and more dramatic, predellas fell from use around 1510-20 in the High Renaissance, although older or more conservative painters continued to use them, for example Luca Signorelli, by then in his 70s, in about 1521. In this case he is thought to have only done the underdrawing for the main scene, leaving the painting to his workshop assistants. But he is thought to have painted the predella scenes himself.

Piero del Pollaiuolo (UK: /ˌpɒlaɪˈwoʊloʊ/ POL-eye-WOH-loh, US: /ˌpoʊl-/ POHL-, Italian: [ˈpjɛːro del pollaˈjwɔːlo]; also spelled Pollaiolo; c. 1443 – by 1496), whose birth name was Piero Benci, was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. His older brother, by about ten years, was the artist Antonio del Pollaiuolo and the two frequently collaborated. Their work shows both classical influences and an interest in human anatomy; according to Vasari, the brothers carried out dissections to improve their knowledge of the subject (although modern scholars tend to doubt this).

Giorgio Vasari, who wrote several decades after both brothers were dead, includes a joint biography of Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Vasari says that Antonio was especially highly regarded for his disegno or drawing, and it may be that on shared works he did most of the underdrawing, leaving Piero and their assistants to complete the painting. Vasari began the tradition of stressing the contribution of Antonio rather than Piero to the paintings, which went largely unchallenged until the 20th century, despite suspicions by art historians such as "Crowe and Cavalcaselle" in the late 19th century, and in the 20th Martin Davies, later director of the National Gallery. In the 21st century a full and partly successful challenge has been mounted, and some attributions changed.