Two deformed heads facing each other
Medium
Etching; second state of two
Dimensions
Sheet: 3 1/16 × 4 5/8 in. (7.8 × 11.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1917
Accession Number
17.50.18-208
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints collection, *Two Deformed Heads Facing Each Other* (1645) is a etching by Wenceslauslar after a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. second state of two measures just 3 1/16 × 4 5/8 inches (7.8 × 11.7 cm), featuring a man's and a woman's grotesque heads locked in an intense, confrontational gaze. The compact scale belies its power, drawing viewers into the raw expressiveness of distorted human features. Leonardo, the Renaissance genius known for anatomical precision and curiosity about the human form, often sketched grotesque heads to study ext...
About the Artist
Leonardo da Vinci|Wenceslaus Hollar · 1452–1519
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) stands as the quintessential Renaissance polymath, whose genius spanned painting, sculpture, architecture, science, mathematics, engineering, anatomy, geology, cartography, botany, and writing. Born in Vinci, Italy, as the illegitimate son of a notary, Leonardo received limited formal education but demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent from an early age. His appr...