Head of a Bearded Man Wearing a Turban (recto); Latin script (verso)

Master of the Death of Absalom (?)

ca. 1510 · Brush and black brown ink heightened with white gouache on slate gray prepared paper. · Robert Lehman Collection

Head studies depicting bearded men with deeply lined features and large turbans were popular at the turn of the sixteenth century in Central Europe and the Netherlands. The grisaille-like technique shown here— monochromatic gouache on colored ground—also proliferated around this time. With its distinctive brushstrokes and white highlights, this drawing is reminiscent of Netherlandish designs for glass around 1500. The sheet has been attributed to the so-called Master of the Death of Absolom, an early sixteenth-century designer of stained glass.

Artist

Master of the Death of Absalom (?)

Date

ca. 1510

Medium

Brush and black brown ink heightened with white gouache on slate gray prepared paper.

Department

Robert Lehman Collection

Credit line

Robert Lehman Collection, 1975