03 — ARTWORK
Three Male Heads
- MEDIUM
- Pen and brown ink over traces of black chalk, 321 x 206 mm
- TYPE
- Other
PALETTE
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CURRENT LOCATION · Metropolitan Museum of Art
- FILE
- 655 × 1000 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
The subject of this powerful drawing with the head of a man seen in three stages - youth, maturity, and old age - is elusive. Various interpretations have been suggested, from the Ages of Man to an allegoryA work of art which represents some abstract quality or idea, either by means of a single figure (personification) or by grouping objects and figures together. Renaissance allegories make frequent allusions both to both Greek and Roman legends and literature, and also to the wealth of Christian allegorical stories and symbols developed during the Middle Ages. of past, present, and future. The central figure may have been intended as an idealized self-portraitThe Roman portrait bust survived in the form of life-sized reliquaries of saints, but it was in 15th century Florence that the individual features and character of a contemporary sitter were accurately recorded by sculptors such as Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, Mino da Fiesole and the Rossellino. A similar degree of realism occurs in 15th century tomb sculpture. The equestrian portrait, based on antique statues such as the Marcus Aurelius monument (Rome, Campidoglio), was revived in the 14th century. Two examples in fresco are Simone Martini's Guidoriccio (c. 1328; Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) and the posthumous portrait of Sir John Hawkwood (1436; Florence, Cathedral) by Uccello, which gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional statue seen from below. The Venetian Republic ordered imposing monuments from Donatello (1447; Gattarnelata, Padua) and Verrocchio (14799; Colleoni, Venice), whilst other statesmen ordered their own images to be erected in public places, directly relating themselves to the military heroes of ancient Rome. Another form of political portraiture derived from antiquity was the commemorative portrait medal designed by artists such as Pisanello. The carved or painted profile portrait became popular in the 1450s. The realism of the clear, flattened image, painted under the influence of Flemish examples by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, was superseded by the three-quarter and frontal portrait, psychologically more complex, such as Leonardo's enigmatic Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre) with her momentary smile or Andrea del Sarto's arresting Portrait of a Man (London, National Gallery). The 16th century portrait became generalized, Lotto's Andrea Odoni (1527; Royal Collection) being an idealized concept of a collector rather than an individual. Group portraits, decorating whole rooms, include the narrative scenes of the Gonzaga court painted by Mantegna (completed 1474; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale) and the elaborate schemes commissioned by the Farnese family in Rome from Vasari (1546; Palazzo della Cancelleria) and Salviati (after 1553; Palazzo Farnese). Portraits were also incorporated into religious narratives, as in Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle painted for Giovanni Tornabuoni in S. Maria Novella, Florence (1486-90). of the artist, the Florentine sculptor and draftsman Baccio Bandinelli.
The portrayal of the three heads on the same scale from three different points of view - to the left, frontally, and in profile to the right - betrays Bandinelli's interest in the description of forms in the round, an approach suited to his main occupation, sculpture. The juxtaposition of overlapping heads, turned at various angles, seems to have been a recurring theme in Bandinelli's drawn oeuvreThe complete body of works created by an artist..
OTHER WORKS BY BACCIO BANDINELLI
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-rff85c73772c4e7,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Three Male Heads by BANDINELLI, Baccio},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-14},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/bandinelli-baccio-r9e6df17c8c99e1/three-male-heads-rff85c73772c4e7},
urldate = {2026-09-14},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-14. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.