Head of an Oriental
Medium
etching
Classification
Department
Prints
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland
Accession Number
1921.173
Tags
male
About this artwork
As Europeans more actively engaged in sea travel and trade in the 1600s, references to distant locales became popular among artists. This is one of a series of head studies of men in Turkish costume created by Jan Lievens in the 1630s. He sketched this bearded, turbaned man loosely but with precise details, such as the paisley pattern, a traditional Persian design, on his scarf. While making this print, Lievens shared a studio with Rembrandt, and the artists’ shared a mutual emphasis on sketchin...