The Fox and the Mask

It is recorded by Erasmus in his Adagia, along with its Greek equivalent (Ὦ οἷα κεφαλὴ, καὶ ἐγκέφαλον ούκ ἔχει), with the explanation that it originates from Aesop's fable.

[3] Its earliest English appearance is in William Caxton's collection of the fables (1484), under the title of "The wulf and the dede man's hede", as an example of the proposition that 'Many one ben whiche haue grete worship and glorye but noo prudence' .

[4] But Andrea Alciato, the influential Italian originator of the emblem book, generally pictures a fox contemplating a mask.

However, the fable is merely alluded to in his poem, which is more a meditation on appearance and comments at the end that the fox's remark "to many a lord applies".

At an Academy exhibition, a fox glances sideways at a pompous portrait bust that is being examined closely by an ass, with the figures of a uniformed duck and an owlish dandy in the background.