Leonardo da Vinci: The Hair and The Nose

Live Science reported yesterday that Ross Duffin, a music professor at Case Western University, claims that the figure playing the lira da braccio (a stringed instrument) in a print created by Marcantonio Raimondi is not the Greek hero Orpheus but rather Leonardo da Vinci. The figure in the print does have a similar nose and hair to those in the two known self-portraits by Leonardo da Vinci. The figure also looks similar to portraits of Leonardo by other artists: a drawing by Francesco Melzi (after 1510, Royal Library, Windsor) and the painting of Plato in Raphael’s School of Athens (Vatican, 1509).

Duffin makes the important observation that Leonardo played the lira da braccio. The professor also points out that normally Orpheus appears in art as clean-shaven and young.

Martin Kemp, an expert on Leonardo at Oxford University, wrote that it certainly is possible that the print is a portrait of the Renaissance artist; however, the challenge will be to make the case that Leonardo and Raimondi crossed paths at any time.