Franz Messerschmidt, the leading sculptor at the court in Vienna in the 1760s, was forced, for personal and professional reasons, to leave for the provinces and by 1777 had settled in Pressburg (today Bratislava). There he concentrated on a private series of heads, completing more than sixty in his preferred medium of tin alloy or in alabaster.
While acknowledging the artistic tradition of exploring facial expressions and emotions, these Kopfstücke, or head pieces, as he called them, were highly original for their combination of realism and abstraction. Visitors to his studio observed the artist studying himself in a mirror. Some of the heads are straightforward self-portraits, smiling or frowning; others are satirical or comic, the sitter reacting to a strong odour or yawning widely. A few, called “refusers” by an early critic for the way they deny contact with their surroundings, are deeply introspective.
The meaning of the series has been long debated. The titles were conferred after the sculptor’s death, when forty-nine works were exhibited in 1793. Messerschmidt was aware of contemporary medical theories, such as Johann Caspar Lavater’s 1775
study of physiognomy’s relation to human character, and he certainly knew his Viennese neighbour the physician Franz Anton Mesmer, who believed that outward senses connect to inner emotions and developed related therapies to treat his patients. However one assesses it, the series of is exceptional in eighteenth-century sculpture, stylistically advancing beyond Neoclassicism to a reductive
simplicity, forecasting modern minimalism, and psychologically rendering serial states of mind in a project that was novel for the pre-Freudian world.
This is part 3 of 3-part series on the works of Franz Messerschmidt:
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| 1777-83 Quiet, peaceful sleep tin 43 x 22.5 x 24 cm Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
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| 1780-83 Capuchin lead-tin cast Palais Mirbach, Galerie de la Ville, Bratislava |
c1780-83 Alabaster Medallion reliefs:
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| Albert of Saxony, Duke of Teschen |
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| Emperor Joseph II as Hungarian King 9.5 cm diameter Museum of Fine Arts Budapest |
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| Emperor Joseph II as Hungarian King |
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| Joseph Kiss |
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| Self-portrait |
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| Self-portrait |
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| Self-portrait 14.5 cm diameter Staatliche Museum, Berlin |
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| Self-portrait with wig 9.5 cm diameter Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
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| Self-portrait 8 cm diameter Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
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| Unknown female |
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| 1782 Márton György Kovachich tin cast 44 cm high Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
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| n.d. A grievously wounded man (details not found) |
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| n.d. Emotions 2 (details not found) |
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| n.d. Emotions 3 (details not found) |
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| n.d. Emotions 4 (details not found) |
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| n.d. Emotions 10 (details not found) |
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| n.d. A young man and young woman (attributed to Messerschmidt) lead, on carved ebonised wood socles |
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| n.d. Seated Male Nude Holding a Staff black and white chalk on blue paper 41.8 x 26.7 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| n.d. Sketches of Character Heads Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Austria |
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| n.d. Anger 1 (details not found) |
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| n.d. Anger 2 |
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