Da Vinci drew this hairdos in minute detail as in the study for the Leda and the Swan. In Leonardo's female heads and figures, in contrast to their opulent forms, their faces seem young. Their eyes, either modestly towered or luminous and clear, lend a sweet, sad grace to their virginal expressions.

Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces or rapes Leda, a Spartan queen. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta. According to many versions of the story, Zeus took the form of a swan and raped Leda on the same night she slept with her husband King Tyndareus. In some versions, she laid two eggs from which the children hatched.