In this drawing, and in RCIN 912490, Leonardo addresses the theme of aged lovers: the woman in a low-cut bodice now has an ostentatious headdress, while the gap-toothed man, gazing ardently at her, wears a similarly old-fashioned outsized hat. He appears to be offering the woman a flower, and the drawing is therefore a rather cruel satire on the vanity and ridiculousness of the elderly behaving like young lovers.

Throughout Leonardo’s life, and particularly in the years around 1490, he sketched countless grotesque heads. They can be seen as a counterpart to his investigations of ideal human proportion distorting those ideals of beauty to create images of ‘ideal ugliness’. Leonardo had no intention of introducing such grotesques into his writings or his paintings – they were essentially amusements, for himself and his associates, and probably for the Sforza court too.

Text adapted from Leonardo da Vinci: A life in drawing, London, 2018