Bust of a Man Facing Right

Bust of a Man Facing Right

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

William Griswold (1991) dated this drawing to the 1630s, based on its stylistic similarity with other studies of heads datable to the same period. Linda Wolk-Simon (1991) notes that Nicholas Turner (in an unpublished opinion) includes the Museum's sheet in a group of studies from the 1630s that are similar in handling and subject matter. Among this group, which features single male figures in half- or bust-length, are Studies of a Man Reading (Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge inv. 1932.233), Old Bearded Man (Royal Library, Windsor; inv. 2588) and St. Joseph Holding a Staff ( Princeton University Art Museum inv. 40-40). While the dating of Guercino's mature period drawings can often be tricky, a date in the early to mid 1640s may be suggested on the basis of its great economy of style and technique: deep tonal modeling in washes, with little or no internal pen hatching in the shadows, a restrained use of pen and ink outlines. The drawing is precisely comparable to a study of a warrior from this period (Private Collection; Turner and Plazzotta, 1991, no. 134, pp. 161-165).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bust of a Man Facing RightBust of a Man Facing RightBust of a Man Facing RightBust of a Man Facing RightBust of a Man Facing Right

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.