He was open and accessible, but sensitive. Failures, the Meanwhile very rarely occurred, did much to create him. Whenever Sotheby’s listens, a sympathetic response will follow. Probably only his pictures, accepted his client not in the first version, is the Madonna of the grotto from 1483 until 1486 years. The artist had perhaps even deliberately set boundaries beyond the requirements of its customers and represented the Saints without golden ticket and in a dark cave. The second version found appeal, but Leonardo da Vinci himself finished it, but left the final work being done to one of his students. During his stay in the Vatican, where in the younger brother of Pope Leo X., a Medici appointed, by the way, he could not hope for success until then usual.

The Pope had to spy on him, because his anatomical studies were suspicious of him. In addition, he had to prevail against his younger fellow painter Raffaello and Michelangelo a rivalry, which he was not accustomed. The only picture from the few years when the Vatican is John of the Baptist. There the Holy before one is plain dark background shows only face, upper body and arm shine out brightly. The special thing about this late painting is the smiling face of John. The by far most famous image of Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa. This is a very small-format paintings that emerged in the years 1503-1506.

The peculiar and mysterious smile of women fascinated already the contemporaries of the artist, and this ban is unbroken to this day. Mona Lisa is one of the very few works which Leonardo da Vinci not performed on behalf of. There is much speculation about the represented person. Most say that it is a Neapolitan housewife, which however almost improbably appears to be due to the other models of the master. The fact that the artist not separated all his life by the unique painting contradicts this thesis. Already the first biographer, said that the Vernutung that it could be the secret beloved Salai, where Mona Lisa an anagram to Mon Salai was.