Head of an Old Man

This is one of very few preparatory studies for a portrait from the 15th century. Other famous examples are the portraits of Cardinal Albergati by Jan van Eyck and Jouvenal des Ursins by Fouquet. The great difference in relation to the two northern examples is however, that in both these cases the paintings are mere repetitions of the attitudes and expression in the drawings.

This drawing, done in the traditional technique with silverpoint on pink prepared paper, depicts the same man illustrated in the Louvre painting of an old man with his grandson. The drawing was identified as a study for the Louvre painting by Sirén (O. Sirén, Dessins et tableaux de la renaissance italienne dans les collections de Suède, Stockholm 1902). It obviously represents the old man on his death bed with closed eyes as a preparation for a posthumous portrait. He suffered from rhinophyma, the growths on his nose, in the drawing, observed with clinical exactitude; in the painting they are rendered more discretely. With the detailed drawing as his point of departure, Ghirlandaio invented a composition with the old man in tree-quarter profile, introducing a little boy to create a composition with a moving touch and allegorical implications. The drawing and the painting, dated c. 1490, by all probability represents an important Florentine patrician.