Study of Heads

Pisanello

Summary

A reproduction produced by the Vasari Society of a drawing by Pisanello. The drawing shows two heads. The one on the left is seen in profile facing towards the right, and one his face, ear and chin are described by the drawing. The face has a protruding chin, which is tilted slightly upwards. The head to the right of the composition is female and is turned slightly to the left while her gaze looks out at the viewer. She is wearing a headscarf and had thick curls of hair falling either side of her face. The drawing is very faint and many details are indistinct. Text from the accompanying booklet produced by the Vasari Society: "No. 10 PISANELLO (b. about 1390; d. before 1456) STUDY OF HEADS British Museum, P. p.-11. (from the Lagoy Collection.) Chalk on vellum 16.5 x 23.5 cm (6 1/2 x 9 1/4 in.) To the series of drawings by and after Pisanello preserved in Paris, Milan, Vienna, Berlin, Chatsworth and London, may be added two leaflets of vellum recently found in an old parcel in the British Museum. On one of these are the two chalk studies here produced*; these look at first sight earlier in manner than Pisanelo. The head of the woman reveals the rounded forehead, the tiny mouth, the dimpled chin, and the arrangement of folds in the veil which we find in the rendering of hold women by Gentile da Fabriano, and it may well have been copied after him. Unlike Gentile, however, is the searching handling, the structural accents in the rendering of the lids and lips, the latent 'disquiet' in the glance, which are foreign to the bland decorative art of Gentile. The head of the warrior in a helmet (of the type we find in the frescoes of Avanzi and Altichieri) is also, in the opinion of the present writer, a copy by Pisanello after an earlier work of the school of Verona. C. Ricketts. * The extreme delicacy and faintness of these drawings render a satisfactory reproduction practically impossible."