Warrior-Type Head in Profile to the Right

School of: Leonardo da Vinci (in circa 1500-1525)

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Specifications

Title	Warrior-Type Head in Profile to the Right
Material and technique	Black chalk
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 140 mm Width 101 mm
Artists	School of: Leonardo da Vinci Maker: Anoniem
Accession number	I 465 recto (PK)
Credits	Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	1940
Creation date	in circa 1500-1525
Watermark	none (vV, 4P)
Collector	Collector / Franz Koenigs
Provenance	Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830, L.2445), London; art dealer Samuel Woodburn (1781-1853, L.2584), acquired with the Lawrence Collection in 1834; (?) Willem II, King of the Netherlands; his sale, The Hague (De Vries, Roos, Brondgeest) 12.08.1850, lot #261-264; - ; Art dealer Julius W. Böhler (1883-1966), Lucerne; Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1929 (School of Leonardo da Vinci); D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Exhibitions	Rotterdam 1995, p. 206; Rotterdam 1997-98; Haarlem 2018, no. 5
Internal exhibitions	Rondom Raphaël (1997)
External exhibitions	Leonardo. Expressie en Emotie (2018)
Research	Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Literature	Von Ritgen 1865, p. 5, plate 41 (Leonardo da Vinci); Pedretti 1989, p. 30, n. 49, ill. 34 (Leonardo Follower (or Leonardo reworked by a pupil); Kwakkelstein 1994, ill. 21 (anonymous); Rotterdam 1995, p. 206; Kwakkelstein 1997, pp.197-198, ill. 1 (after Leonardo); Kwakkelstein 2014, p. 150, ill. 21 (Francesco Melzi?); Haarlem 2018, nr. 5 (follower of Leonardo da Vinci).
Material	Paper > Vegetable material > Organic material > Material > Material and technique Black chalk > Chalk > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Geographical origin	Italy > Southern Europe > Europe

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Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Michael Kwakkelstein

The present double-sided sheet entered the collection in 1940. However, this fact went unnoticed among scholars of Leonardo da Vinci until 1997.^[1]The drawing on the recto of this sheet was probably made after a now lost drawing by Leonardo. It depicts one of the artist’s favourite motifs: a surly or stern-looking old man with a hooked nose who is referred to as the ‘warrior type’ in the literature. Leonardo’s special preference for this subject type dates from the second half of the 1470s when, already an independent painter, he continued to visit the workshop of his former teacher, the Florentine sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488). Verrocchio’s sculpted work includes representations of idealized all’antica (after the antique) heads that are indebted to antique coins, especially those with the likeness of Emperor Galba. Classical coins remained a source of inspiration for Leonardo, as can be seen from his drawings of horses, Nero’s profile, the head of a beautiful young man and several figure poses in Windsor and Cologne.^[2]

The copyist imitated Leonardo’s left-handed shading as he modelled the profile head in fine hatching. He briefly sketched the figure’s garment, including the hem of a shirt apparently extended in ribbons that are tied in a knot, as illustrated in other drawings by Leonardo of the bust of the warrior type.^[3] On the other hand, the presence of left- and right-handed strokes suggests that a pupil, possibly Francesco Melzi (1493-c.1570), reworked Leonardo’s drawing.^[4]

The facial type illustrated in the drawing on the verso cannot be related to any similar type in Leonardo’s drawings. The right half of the young man’s face was lost when the sheet was trimmed. The modest quality of the sketch and the fact that the draughtsman was concerned only with briefly indicating the figure’s facial features with a few quick and hesitant strokes, suggests that this study of a young man’s head represents a pupil’s exercise.^[5]

Footnotes

^[1]See Kwakkelstein 1997; Bora in: Milan 1987, p. 13, ill. 2 (in ‘Weimar’); Pedretti 1989, p. 30, n. 50, ill. 34 (in ‘Weimar’).

^[2]Royal Collection, inv. 912328; 912554; 912557; Wallraf-Richartz-Museum-Foundation Corboud, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Z 2003; see Kwakkelstein in: Haarlem 2018, pp. 113-22 (with previous bibliography).

^[3]See Kwakkelstein 2014, figs. 19, 25, 71, 108.

^[4]Basing his observations on a photograph, Pedretti 1989, p. 30, n. 50, noted the left-handed hatchings but rejected an attribution of the drawing to Leonardo, ‘unless it has been completely reworked by a pupil.’

^[5] See, for instance, comparably briefly sketched depictions of heads as drawing exercises by pupils of Michelangelo, in: New York 2017, nos. 109-12; 114.

Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600

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