Frans Floris I (Antwerp 1519/20-1570)

Head of a man in a helmet (Mars?)

Details

Frans Floris I (Antwerp 1519/20-1570)
Head of a man in a helmet (Mars?)
oil on panel
18 ¼ x 13 3/8 in. (46.4 x 34 cm.) with an addition of 18 ¼ x 1 in. (16.4 x 2.6 cm.) to the left edge
stamped on the reverse with a panel maker's mark 'A'

Provenance

(Possibly) Petrus Daems (c.1590-1653), Antwerp; his sale (†), Antwerp, 16 April 1657, lot 25 (to Viejanne).
Rothschild collection, London, 1929.
with Sackville Gallery, London, 1936.

Literature

J. Denucé, Kunstuitvoer in de 17e eeuw te Antwerpen, de firma Forchoudt, Antwerp,1931, p. 43, no. 290.
J. Denucé, De Antwerpsche "Konstkamers"; inventarissen van kunstverzamelingen te Antwerpen in de 16e en 17e eeuwen, Antwerp, 1932, p. 219.
M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, Antonis Mor and his Contemporaries, Leiden and Brussels, 1975, XIII, no. 157.
C. van de Velde, Frans Floris (1519/20-1570), Leven en Werken, Brussels, 1975, pp. 270-271, no. 128, fig. 63.
E.H. Wouk, Frans Floris (1519/20-1570): Imagining a Northern Renaissance, Leiden and Boston, 2018, pp. XXIX, 219, 221, 602-3, no. 149, fig. 6.3.

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Lot Essay

This theatrical Head of a man with a helmet (Mars?) was likely painted by Frans Floris as a head study and retained in his workshop to serve as a model for future compositions, a practice that constituted one of the most enduring innovations of his studio. Together with Head of a Woman (fig. 1; Oberlin, Allen Memorial Art Museum, inv. no. 1972.79) and Head of a Woman with a Diadem (Private collection, France; see E.H. Wouk, op. cit., pp. 219 and 221), this picture is among Floris’ most sensuous and arresting works, expressed with an immediacy and emotion not readily seen in his large-scale pictures.
This study was used as a model for the figure of Adam in Floris’ Adam and Eve (Florence, Palazzo Pitti, inv. no. 1082), and the same head, with minor variations, appears in the figure of Mars in his Mars, Venus, and Cupid Surprised by the Gods (Sibiu, Muzeul Național Brukenthal, inv. no. 1241).

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