Although it is likely a study of a character datable to Leonardo's Milanese years (around 1490), this drawing is universally recognized as a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, almost the symbolic icon of the Renaissance artist, expression of his genius and talent applied to most diverse fields of knowledge. The essential features of Leonardo's face, in particular his beard and long hair, are also testified by iconographic and written sources. The drawing was unknown until the early nineteenth century, when it was replicated for the first time in a volume dedicated to the Last Supper in Milan and identified as a self-portrait. According to recent studies it would be a work carried out by the now sixty-year-old master, shortly before or shortly after his departure for France (Amboise Castle), where he died in 1519.