This is the largest of several studies by Parmigianino of the same head from different viewpoints (see another at RCIN 990580) - a portrait of Julius Caesar, either a marble original or a plaster cast. The present drawing was classed by Popham (1949) as a copy after Parmigianino, but it is of high quality and no more tense than many other late pen drawings by the artist. The rendering of light and surface texture is particularly fine, and it appears to be an original drawing of the late 1530s (M. Clayton in Correggio and Parmigianino, 2000, no. 127).

As with several other drawings by Parmigianino, the sheet comes from one of George III's albums of drawings by the Carracci, and had presumably placed there due to its superficial similarity to the style of Agostino Carracci.