Head of St Andrew in profile to right, study for a painting of the Transfiguration, 1860,0616.96

This large-scale black chalk drawing shows the head of an elderly man with a bald crown and a thick, curling beard. The artist used soft shading and pounced outlines to define the structure of the face and the intense, downward gaze of the figure. This was a working drawing used to transfer the exact details of the apostle's expression onto the final wooden panel.

The Transfiguration is a central theme in Renaissance Neoplatonism, representing the human soul's struggle to perceive divine light while trapped in the material world. This study depicts an apostle unable to heal a possessed boy, illustrating the limits of human nature without the 'illuminatio' (divine illumination) discussed by thinkers like Marsilio Ficino.