The head has more meaning for us than any other motif available to the artist. A sense of connection across the centuries is the great gift of the skilled portraitist.

By capturing the most subtle nuances of appearance, we can feel that Hans Holbein has brought Sir Thomas More (no. 1) into our presence. Even in the modern age, a portrait drawing can capture personality like no other medium: David Hockney's delicate study of Jacob Rothschild (no. 75) and John Singer Sargent's imposing portrait of Henry James (no. 70) show two contrasting twentieth-century approaches, and demonstrate why drawing can still be as central to our perception of the world today as it was 500 years ago.

Guido Reni's screaming Marsyas (no. 36), Charles Le Brun's terrified Persian warrior (no. 37), and Carlo Maratti's decapitated Holofernes (no. 38) were all studies intended to draw the spectator into the drama of a composition. But drawings do not have to be dramatic to be powerful, and Piazzetta's melancholy Young Moor (no. 50) or Leendert van der Cooghen's study of an unknown Young woman (no. 39) are, in their quiet way, just as moving.