Head Of St John The Evangelist

Head Of St John The Evangelist by Leonardo da Vinci

Created in the seventeenth century during the Renaissance period, this work belongs firmly within the portrait tradition. Leonardo da Vinci worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.

The physical object — pencil, black chalk, paste, and watercolour, 562 x 432 mm — carries its own history of handling and restoration. Leonardo da Vinci's brushwork here moves between exacting description and looser, more suggestive passages, a balance typical of Baroque studio practice.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. The sitter is constructed: clothes, pose, and attributes were chosen to project status, virtue, and lineage.

Housed at Musées De Strasbourg in Strasbourg, the painting has passed through the hands of collectors, dealers, and institutions before reaching public view — a provenance that is itself part of the object's story.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”