A drawing of the head of a man turned in profile to the right. He has heavy regular features, a slight beard and thick curly hair. Melzi's number 40.

Early in his career Leonardo fixed on two standard male types, who thereafter recur repeatedly in his drawings and paintings: a delicate adolescent, and a more robust older man. In the last decade of his life he produced a number of independent drawings of such heads, exercises in form and draughtsmanship simply for his own satisfaction.

Leonardo’s young men were always images of beauty, but the older type was more varied. As Leonardo himself aged, so his older men were presented with greater sympathy and gravitas. The virile man in this drawing has a thick-set neck and determined brow, hair like the waves in the Deluges (eg. RCIN 912380) and a beard that may be a reflection of the fashion at the court of Francis I.

Text adapted from Leonardo da Vinci: A life in drawing, London, 2018