Grotesque profile head and caricatures, with scattered sketches
A caricatured old man's head in profile beside lighter faces; mirror-script notes untranscribed
The sheet is dominated by a grotesque profile head of an old man, drawn in energetic pen strokes with a heavy jaw, jutting features and wild, straggling hair, the kind of expressive caricature Leonardo delighted in. Beside it a second, lighter face is sketched in outline. The right half of the sheet carries much fainter jottings, including a large circle or ring, tiny figures and small forms along a slope. The page also bears several lines of mirror-script writing and numerals which are not transcribed in this edition.
On this page
Grotesque head of an old man
A bald-browed old man is drawn in profile with exaggerated, ugly features: a jutting brow and nose, a sunken toothless mouth, a heavy chin and a mass of wiry hair and beard rendered in dense, agitated pen work. It is a characteristic study of the grotesque or caricatured head.
Second caricatured face in outline
To the right of the main head a further face is sketched more lightly in outline, its profile and features summarily indicated. It repeats the caricatural type in a quicker, unfinished form.