A large man with a bald head facing a grotesque female
Original title: A large man with a bald head facing a grotesque female
kurzbeschreibung
A bald man and a woman with distorted features face each other in profile in this 1645 etching by Wenceslaus Hollar. The print reproduces an invention by Leonardo da Vinci, as indicated by the inscription 'Leonardo da Vinci inu: W.Hollar fecit'. This is the second state of two.
Description
On the left stands the tall man, on the right the woman, both in profile and turned toward each other. He wears a simple, habit-like garment; his head is bald. She has an oversized head, short hair, and a strikingly distorted facial expression. The background is empty, and the bodies stand out through dense lines and hatching. The light appears even, with no discernible shadows.
Context
Hollar, an etcher from Bohemia, made this print in 1645 in Antwerp, where he worked for the publisher Hendrick van der Borcht. The model was a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci from his notebooks, in which he studied grotesque physiognomies. Such grotesques were regarded in the Renaissance and Baroque as studies of human ugliness and as character portraits. Hollar turned the motif into a print series aimed at collectors.
Impact
Between precise observation and caricatural exaggeration, a tension-filled effect emerges. The calm, symmetrical arrangement contrasts with the woman's grotesque appearance, giving the sheet something unsettling, almost surreal. The clear linework makes the work an expressive testament to seventeenth-century reproductive printmaking.
Technique
The sheet was printed as an etching in the second state on paper. The lines are fine and dense; varying hatching densities model the forms. This technique allowed the model to be reproduced precisely, with Hollar, as usual, working with a needle on an etched plate.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)