By the second half of the 15th century, knowledge of human anatomy was an important element of artistic practice in Florence. Artists studied the life model in order to understand the structure of the body, its physical appearance and movements.

During the winter of 1507-08, Leonardo’s interest in human anatomy began to intensify. He embarked upon the dissection of a man who was more than one hundred years old. This marked the beginning of a period of intense study of human anatomy and physiology, which culminated in a group of anatomical drawings produced sometime after 1510. Leonardo probably executed them with a treatise on anatomy in mind.

On this sheet, Leonardo illustrates the head, neck and shoulder muscles of an aged man as seen from the side, front and back. By doing so, he adopts the technique of sculptors and architects to regard form in three-dimensions. The bodily forms are shown as they would appear without their outer coverings. The neat, ordered appearance of these sheets implies that they were not actual notes and sketches made during dissections, but collated drafts executed some time after.

In Leonardo's words
This plan of mine of the human body will be unfolded to you just as though you had the natural man before you. The reason is that if you wish to know thoroughly the parts of man after he has been dissected you must either turn to him, or your eye, so that you examine him from different aspects, from below, above, and from the sides…