Head of a Woman Looking to Upper Left
1590–1600
Medium
Charcoal, highlighted with white chalk, on blue paper faded light- brown
Dimensions
sheet: 16 15/16 x 14 1/16 in. (43 x 35.7 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1950
Accession Number
50.56
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
Art Historical Context
This striking drawing, *Head of a Woman Looking to Upper Left*, captures a moment of quiet introspection through the skilled hand of the Carracci family—likely Ludovico or Annibale Carracci—working in Bologna between 1590 and 1600. As leading figures of the Bolognese school, the Carracci brothers helped shift Italian art away from Mannerist exaggeration toward a renewed naturalism rooted in careful observation of the human form. Such head studies were essential to their practice, serving as preparatory works for larger paintings and frescoes that adorned churches and palaces across Emilia-Roma...