What is the greatest unfinished masterpiece in art history?

Abandoned, interrupted, or still going after a century of scaffolding. Greatness here gets measured by what was left on the table.

1. 1
   The Adoration of the Magi

   Leonardo abandoned this Florentine commission in 1482 at the underpainting stage and left for Milan.
2. 2
   Sagrada Família

   Gaudí's Barcelona basilica, begun in 1882 and still under construction.
3. 3
   St Jerome in the Wilderness

   Leonardo's gaunt saint, laid in as monochrome underpaint and never carried further.
4. 4
   The Sforza Horse

   Leonardo's colossal equestrian monument: the clay model was shot at by archers and the bronze became cannon.
5. 5
   The Entombment

   Michelangelo's panel in the National Gallery, left with bare patches of primed wood.
6. 6
   Rondanini Pietà

   Michelangelo's last sculpture, still being cut days before he died at 88.
7. 7
   The Bride

   Klimt's final canvas, left on the easel in 1918 with the underdrawing showing through.
8. 8
   Washington's unfinished portrait

   Gilbert Stuart's Athenaeum head of George Washington — unfinished, and the face on the dollar bill.
9. 9
   The Tennis Court Oath

   Jacques-Louis David's revolutionary group scene, abandoned as its subjects went to the guillotine.
10. 10
    The Battle of Anghiari

    Leonardo's Florentine mural, ruined by his own wax experiment and lost behind a later wall.
11. 11
    The Gates of Hell

    Rodin worked on this doorway for 37 years and never delivered it in his lifetime.
12. 12
    Crazy Horse Memorial

    A South Dakota mountain carving begun in 1948 and still decades from completion.

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