Recto: A costume study of a prisoner. Verso: A nude male figure

Recto: a drawing of a man dressed in rags, with shackled feet and wrists, asking for alms. He stands three-quarters to the right, with his right hand on a club, and his left outstretched. Inscribed ojo. Verso: an outline of a nude male figure, facing the spectator, seen from the neck down, wearing loose socks. As a court artist in France, Leonardo designed costumes for the many entertainments staged for King Francis I. While many of Leonardo’s costume studies aim at a great richness and layering of textiles, this ‘prisoner’, with tattered clothes and shackled ankles, leaning on a rustic club and begging for alms, would have been intended as a picturesque contrast, to heighten the effect of the more luxuriously dressed protagonists. See also RCIN 912574 - 912577.