CESARE da Sesto
(b. 1477, Sesto Calende, d. 1523, Milano)

Seated Bull

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Red chalk, 124 x 175 mm
Royal Collection, Windsor

Like Leonardo, Cesare da Sesto drew animals. Employing the red chalk medium favoured by Leonardo for its capacity to achieve descriptive naturalism (and for this reason also employed by Cesare in his numerous studies of arms, hands, and other anatomical details), he produced unwaveringly direct graphic jottings of a bull, such as this drawing.

The verso of the drawing has a sketch of a donkey, observed from life.