Lot Essay
In 1993 the drawing was offered for sale in London together with three other similar sheets (Phillips, London, 7 July 1993, lots 127, 128, 131, and 132). The four studies, coming from the same collection, are executed in pen and brown ink and are all roughly the same size. Each one shows a unique idealized female head in profile with fanciful, almost impossible, hairstyles. The location of the three other sheets is unknown since the Phillips sale. They were sold separately and are presumably kept in private collections. The present drawing, showing an extremely elegant head facing right with the hair decorated with ribbons, pearls and gold chains, was the sheet that fetched the highest price at the 1993 auction.
Three other drawings with the same characteristics are known: one is in the Courtauld Institute in London (inv. D.1952.RW.4278; Old Master and 19th-Century Drawings, op. cit., under no. 10), the second in a private collection in New York (ibid., no. 10) and the third in another collection in the United States (L. J. Feinberg, From Studio to Studiolo. Florentine Draftsmanship under the First Medici Grand Dukes, exhib. cat., Oberlin and elsewhere, 1991, no. 22, ill.).
The group of seven drawings has been ascribed to the Veronese artist Jacopo Ligozzi to the period when he was working at the Medici court in Florence, having been summoned there in 1577. Ligozzi entered the service of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Francesco I de’ Medici, and in his role as court artist was involved in a variety of projects: from producing portraits of members of the court to creating designs for festivities, theatre, tapestries, furniture, and metalwork. Ligozzi, trained as a miniaturist, is also known for producing accurate botanical watercolors which the Grand Duke exchanged with the naturalist Ulisse Aldovrandi (L. Tongiorgi Tomasi, I ritratti di piante di Iacopo Ligozzi, Ospedaletto, 1993).
Idealized heads drawn as autonomous works, like the present one, were the response of later 16th Century artists to Michelangelo’s famous drawings of heads with fantastic headdresses and hairstyles that were described by Vasari as ‘teste divine’ (divine heads). Michelangelo created these striking and highly celebrated studies beginning in the late 1520s and continued until the end of his life (fig. 1; H. Chapman, Michelangelo Drawings. Closer to the Master, London, 2005, pp. 203-205). Documents reveal that the master presented several such drawings to friends and aristocratic patrons in his circle, like Gherardo Perini, Vittoria Colonna and Tommaso de’ Cavalieri (on the teste divine drawings as gifts see C. Bambach, Michelangelo Divine Draftsman and Designer, exhib. cat., New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2017, pp. 139-142). Sources of inspiration for Michelangelo were antique gems and Roman grottesche decorations, but the artist brought this imagery to unprecedent heights both in creativity of invention and in quality of execution.
In contrast to Michelangelo’s teste divine, which were drawn in chalk, the present drawing, and the others mentioned above, display a fine linear technique in pen and ink drawn over faint traces of black chalk. Every detail of the hair and of the jewelry is described with meticulous precision through fine lines and careful crosshatching. It has been suggested that these drawings may have been intended to be translated into engravings, but no related prints exist and the sheets do not bear any signs of having been transferred to the copper plate (Feinberg, op. cit., p. 110). The drawings were therefore most likely created as independent works in their own right. All the sheets in the group carry framing lines in brown ink, further emphasizing how the compositions were considered finished works.
The subject matter of the present drawing reflects the admiration for Michelangelo’s works and the legacy of his teste divine among artists of later generations, while at the same time it also reveals the fascination of Renaissance artists for the elaborate representation of female hair (fig. 2). As has been exhaustively shown in recent scholarship (see, for example, the catalogue of the recent exhibition H. Burns, V. Farinella, and M. Mussolin, Le Trecce di Faustina. Acconciature, donne e potere nel Rinascimento, Vicenza, Gallerie d'Italia, 2023), this interest predates Michelangelo and can be found in the work of Verrocchio and Leonardo, as well as Botticelli and others (E. Lugli, ‘Leonardo and the Hairmakers’, in F. Borgo, R. Maffeis, and A. Nova, Leonardo in dialogue, Venice, 2019, pp. 19-46).
Fig. 1. Michelangelo Buonarroti, Ideal head of a woman. British Museum, London.
Fig. 2. Sandro Botticelli, Idealized portrait of Simonetta Vespucci. Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt.
Three other drawings with the same characteristics are known: one is in the Courtauld Institute in London (inv. D.1952.RW.4278; Old Master and 19th-Century Drawings, op. cit., under no. 10), the second in a private collection in New York (ibid., no. 10) and the third in another collection in the United States (L. J. Feinberg, From Studio to Studiolo. Florentine Draftsmanship under the First Medici Grand Dukes, exhib. cat., Oberlin and elsewhere, 1991, no. 22, ill.).
The group of seven drawings has been ascribed to the Veronese artist Jacopo Ligozzi to the period when he was working at the Medici court in Florence, having been summoned there in 1577. Ligozzi entered the service of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Francesco I de’ Medici, and in his role as court artist was involved in a variety of projects: from producing portraits of members of the court to creating designs for festivities, theatre, tapestries, furniture, and metalwork. Ligozzi, trained as a miniaturist, is also known for producing accurate botanical watercolors which the Grand Duke exchanged with the naturalist Ulisse Aldovrandi (L. Tongiorgi Tomasi, I ritratti di piante di Iacopo Ligozzi, Ospedaletto, 1993).
Idealized heads drawn as autonomous works, like the present one, were the response of later 16th Century artists to Michelangelo’s famous drawings of heads with fantastic headdresses and hairstyles that were described by Vasari as ‘teste divine’ (divine heads). Michelangelo created these striking and highly celebrated studies beginning in the late 1520s and continued until the end of his life (fig. 1; H. Chapman, Michelangelo Drawings. Closer to the Master, London, 2005, pp. 203-205). Documents reveal that the master presented several such drawings to friends and aristocratic patrons in his circle, like Gherardo Perini, Vittoria Colonna and Tommaso de’ Cavalieri (on the teste divine drawings as gifts see C. Bambach, Michelangelo Divine Draftsman and Designer, exhib. cat., New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2017, pp. 139-142). Sources of inspiration for Michelangelo were antique gems and Roman grottesche decorations, but the artist brought this imagery to unprecedent heights both in creativity of invention and in quality of execution.
In contrast to Michelangelo’s teste divine, which were drawn in chalk, the present drawing, and the others mentioned above, display a fine linear technique in pen and ink drawn over faint traces of black chalk. Every detail of the hair and of the jewelry is described with meticulous precision through fine lines and careful crosshatching. It has been suggested that these drawings may have been intended to be translated into engravings, but no related prints exist and the sheets do not bear any signs of having been transferred to the copper plate (Feinberg, op. cit., p. 110). The drawings were therefore most likely created as independent works in their own right. All the sheets in the group carry framing lines in brown ink, further emphasizing how the compositions were considered finished works.
The subject matter of the present drawing reflects the admiration for Michelangelo’s works and the legacy of his teste divine among artists of later generations, while at the same time it also reveals the fascination of Renaissance artists for the elaborate representation of female hair (fig. 2). As has been exhaustively shown in recent scholarship (see, for example, the catalogue of the recent exhibition H. Burns, V. Farinella, and M. Mussolin, Le Trecce di Faustina. Acconciature, donne e potere nel Rinascimento, Vicenza, Gallerie d'Italia, 2023), this interest predates Michelangelo and can be found in the work of Verrocchio and Leonardo, as well as Botticelli and others (E. Lugli, ‘Leonardo and the Hairmakers’, in F. Borgo, R. Maffeis, and A. Nova, Leonardo in dialogue, Venice, 2019, pp. 19-46).
Fig. 1. Michelangelo Buonarroti, Ideal head of a woman. British Museum, London.
Fig. 2. Sandro Botticelli, Idealized portrait of Simonetta Vespucci. Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt.