A Grotesque Couple: Old Woman with an Elaborate Headdress and Old Man with Large Ears and Lacking a Chin 1491/93-1570 Attributed to Giovanni Francesco Melzi Italian These two grotesque figures in bust-length profile, facing one another, are copies after original drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, drawn by his faithful pupil and artistic heir, Giovanni Francesco Melzi. Melzi produced a series of these grotesque couples after Leonardo's original drawings, called the "Pembroke Grotesques" after the Earls of Pembroke who once owned them. In many cases, both the original drawings of grotesques by Leonardo and the close copies by Melzi exist, which provides the opportunity for careful comparisons. The attribution of the Pembroke Grotesques to Melzi was originally proposed by Carlo Pedretti in 1973, and is now widely accepted by scholars. Melzi not only copied closely the forms in Leonardo's original models, but he also imitated his master's technique of diagonal, parallel-hatching with left-hand