Follower of Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452–1519)
Italian
Metalpoint, heightened with white, on pale blue-green prepared paper
6 1/16 x 5 in. (15.4 x 12.7 cm); upper corners cut away; lower right corner replaced; repaired diagonal tear at top of sheet
Inscribed in pen and brown ink at lower margin of old mount (now lost): L: da V: vol 2nd No 3 (indicating the drawing's place in the Pembroke albums)
Frederick C. Hewitt Fund, 1917 (19.76.3)
Carlo Pedretti seems to have been the first to point out that this head was probably intended to be seen inclined toward the left, instead of a vertical profile, as it was mounted in the seventeenth century judging from the position of Lely's collector's mark. The slant of the right-handed metalpoint strokes and the placement of the shoulder line at left give weight to the suggestion. It is reproduced here at this angle.
S. Arthur Strong seems to have been the first to reject the traditional attribution of this fine but damaged drawing to Leonardo himself; he rather tentatively proposed the names of Ambrogio de Predis and Boltraffio. The drawing is very probably the work of some talented (right-handed) Milanese follower of Leonardo, but present-day knowledge of this school is so incomplete that it is not possible to assign the sheet with certainty to an individual artist in this milieu.
