17th Century Sketches Comparing Human And Animal Faces

French painter Charles Le Brun was deeply influenced by the work of Descartes' Passions of the Soul in which the French philosopher weighted his opinion on the theory of human emotions.

After speaking on various occasions with the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris, on the subject of general expression, Le Brun presented a lecture to the Academy on physiognomy, in 1671. He illustrated his lecture with a series of striking drawings in which he made analogies between human and animal features.