A drawing of the head of a young man turned in profile to the right. He has heavy classical features, and masses of curly hair. Melzi's number 34. Early in his career Leonardo fixed on two standard male types, who recur repeatedly in his drawings and paintings: an adolescent with refined features, and an older man with aquiline nose, prominent chin and beetling brow. 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. In this drawing the use of red chalk on red prepared paper limits the tonal contrasts of the face, whereas the black chalk of the hair overlays and mingles with the red in dense patterns of corkscrews. The long gently curving horizontal strokes of chalk build up a smoothly rounded surface suggestive of a layer of juvenile fat that has not been shed with the passing of adolescence; the barely defined jaw, merging with the slight pouch of a double chin, the suppressed smile, the straight nose and the untroubled eyes all testify to a life of idle luxury. Text adapted from Leonardo da Vinci: the Divine and the Grotesque
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