Like his master and fellow Antwerp artist Peter Paul Rubens, Jordaens was deeply interested in classical antiquity.  The present sheet of studies of the heads of old men may perhaps have been made from life, rather than after an antique sculpture, but still betrays the artist's interest in these sources.  Jordaens has here cleverly varied the way in which he combines his two colours of chalk from one head to the other, which increases the sense of depth in the drawing, and adds to its visual interest.