Attributed to Francesco Melzi (Milan circa 1491-1570 Vaprio d'Adda)

Formerly part of a larger sheet of caricatures after Leonardo which was in the collection of the Earls of Pembroke at Wilton. The man and woman in the present drawing also appear on a sheet by an unknown 16th-Century Lombard artist, representing Three Grotesque Couples, in the Louvre (inv. 2296) and the man features, alone, in one of the drawings from the Mariette album in the Louvre (inv. RF 28757). Leonardo's original drawings of both characters were formerly at Chatsworth, where the drawing of the woman remains (inv. 824D); the drawing of the man, which was sold in these Rooms, 3 July 1984, lot 22, is now in a private collection in New York (Bambach, op. cit., no. 71).