The head of an old bearded man

A drawing of the head of an old man, in profile to the right. He has a long pointed nose, a long flowing curly beard and moustache, and hair that seems to be twisted into two plaits. Melzi's number 29. The profile here is that of Leonardo’s usual toothless old man, but he is far from pitiful: the neck is muscular, the beard luxuriant, and the long hair twisted into plaits suggesting a certain exoticism, as if he were an oriental magus – indeed Leonardo may have come to regard his standard ‘old man’ type as at some level a self-image. Early in his career Leonardo fixed on two standard male types, who thereafter 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. Text adapted from Leonardo da Vinci: A life in drawing, London, 2018