Study of Two Heads

Peter Paul Rubens

ca. 1609 · Oil on wood · European Paintings

Rubens painted studies of heads after live models and artistic sources, creating a cast of characters that served in turn as models for figures in religious and mythological works. The main figure of this study served variously as a saint, a high priest, a river god, and the philosopher Plato. The other head, derived from one by Mantegna, had its own artistic afterlife. Rubens’s disciples Jacob Jordaens and especially Anthony van Dyck followed the same practice.

Artist: Peter Paul Rubens
Date: ca. 1609
Medium: Oil on wood
Department: European Paintings
Credit line: Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876-1967), 1967

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