Head of a Bearded Man Wearing a Hood in Profile Facing Left

Cavaliere d'Arpino (Giuseppe Cesari)

1636–38 · Pen and brown ink · Drawings and Prints

A late, very characteristic and powerful head study by the gifted Cavaliere d'Arpino, a consumate draftsman and the last great exponent of Roman Mannerism, this sheet marks a new addition to the artist’s rare catalogue of pen drawings. Executed in large scale, this expressive head study of a bearded man in profile wearing a heavy hood was identified by Herwarth Röttgen (2002) as the head of a Roman priest seen at right in Arpino’s ‘Numa Pompilio Instituting the Cult of the Vestal Virgins’, frescoed at the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome, in 1636-38. The design, however, recurs in other works by the artist, like in that of the Benedictine monk in the right background of the Arpino's ‘Pietà’ in the Abbey of Montecassino of 1616. (F.R.)

Artist

Cavaliere d'Arpino (Giuseppe Cesari)

Date

1636–38

Medium

Pen and brown ink

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Anonymous Gift, 2006