Study of a Man's Head
Medium
Red chalk; stumping
Dimensions
Sheet: 5 1/4 × 4 1/2 in. (13.3 × 11.4 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Pfeiffer and Harry G. Sperling Funds, Gift of Dr. Mortimer D. Sackler, Theresa Sackler and Family, and Karen B. Cohen Fund, 1998
Accession Number
1998.361
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the early 1520s, Jacopo da Pontormo (opo Carucci), a leading Florentine Mannerist painter, captured this intimate *Study of a Man's Head using red chalk on a modest sheet measuring just 5¼ × 4½ inches. Created around 1520–25, during the transition from High Renaissance ideals to Mannerism's expressive distortions, the drawing exemplifies Pontormo's with human emotion and form. Working in Florence under influences like Michelangelo and Andrea del Sarto he produced preparatory studies like this one, likely for larger frescoes or altarpieces, honing his signature style of elongated features an...