Red-Chalk Head of a Bearded Old Man ('Self-Portrait')
The celebrated Turin red-chalk head, long revered as Leonardo's self-portrait
A large red-chalk drawing of the head of an elderly man, shown almost frontally with the gaze cast down and to the side. He has a high balding brow furrowed with deep lines, long wavy hair falling to the shoulders, and a very long flowing beard rendered in rippling parallel strokes. The institution's catalogue records the sheet as Leonardo's 'Self-Portrait', dated about 1517-1518; a faint later inscription runs along the lower edge (untranscribed here).
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Head of an aged, bearded man in red chalk
The face is built up in fine red-chalk hatching that models the heavy brows, the lined forehead and the hollow of the cheek beneath prominent cheekbones. The long hair and cascading beard are drawn as long wavy locks of parallel curving lines. The expression is grave and inward, the eyes shadowed beneath jutting brows.