Head of a Youth

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Artist: Domenico Beccafumi (Italian, 1484–1551)
Medium: Oil, on paper
Size: 27.6 × 21.1 cm (10 7/8 × 8 5/16 in.)
Culture: Italian
Museum: J. Paul Getty Museum
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

In this spectacular work, Beccafumi excavated the form through brush with polychrome oil on paper prepared a golden-brown. The oil sketch on paper was a form that the artist was instrumental in developing, and this sheet represents one of the finest and best-preserved examples. Most of these drawings relate to Beccafumi's famous series of frescoes in the Sala del Concistoro, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.

The oil studies are roughly executed, and many are only generically similar to the figures represented; he seems to have used his sketches as a repertoire from which to improvise characters. In this case, the drawing relates directly to the bystander behind the executioner's raised arm in the fresco of Zaleucus of Locri administering Justice.

Intriguingly, there is an oil on paper head study for this figure in the Galleria Borghese, Rome, which is closer to the fresco and which reflects Beccafumi's stylized figure types, while the present sheet, with far more individualized features, has a polished - yet still bravura - finish (witness the single masterful stroke that conveys the light on the side of the neck). Given the extremely high quality and the care with which it was made (and indeed preserved), it seems fair to speculate that it is a finished oil study made from life, perhaps intended as a gift for the young studio assistant who is probably represented.

Text: J. Paul Getty Trust, CC BY 4.0.