Head of a Female Figure in Profile, Turned to the Right (c. 1763–1770?): Art, History and Details

Head of a Female Figure in Profile, Turned to the Right (c. 1763–1770?) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Hughes Taraval (French, 1729–1785).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Like the sheet shown nearby by Greuze, this drawing belongs to a type of work known as an expressive head (tête d'expression). Capturing the representation of a specific emotion on the human face became a standard exercise for artists in France and was especially popular during the second half of the 1700s. In 1758, a special prize for drawing the expressive head was established at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Although we have no documentation regarding the specific emotion Taraval wanted to capture here, the work may represent admiration or adoration.

Object facts

• Title: Head of a Female Figure in Profile, Turned to the Right
• Date: c. 1763–1770?
• Creator attribution: Hughes Taraval (French, 1729–1785)
• Culture: France
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: charcoal with red and white chalk and stumping
• Dimensions: Sheet: 37.4 x 26.2 cm (14 3/4 x 10 5/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2008.363

Collection credit

Bequest of Muriel Butkin

Further reading listed by the museum

• Foster, Carter E., Sylvain Bellenger, and Patrick Shaw Cable. French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.