Head of Caracalla (c. 1768): Art, History and Details

Head of Caracalla (c. 1768) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean-Baptiste Greuze (French, 1725–1805).

The work and its context

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

As part of their training in the late 18th century, French artists practiced drawing têtes d'expression, or expressive heads, that display subtleties of human emotion. Greuze made this chalk study in preparation for a painting in which the Roman emperor Septimius Severus rebukes his notoriously ruthless son, Caracalla, for attempting to assassinate him. Although Greuze based this face for the figure of Caracalla on a Roman portrait bust, he imaginatively adapted the facial expression to dramatize Caracalla’s resentment and humiliation during the confrontation.

Object facts

• Title: Head of Caracalla
• Date: c. 1768
• Creator attribution: Jean-Baptiste Greuze (French, 1725–1805)
• Culture: France
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: Red chalk on cream laid paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 38.8 x 30.3 cm (15 1/4 x 11 15/16 in.); Secondary Support: 45.6 x 37.1 cm (17 15/16 x 14 5/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1999.48

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Munhall, Edgar and Joseph Focarino. Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725-1805. Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1976.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Major Contemporary German Painting Acquired by CMA,” June 9, 1999, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• "A Selection of 1999 Museum Acquisitions." Apollo 150 (December 1999).

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.