Costume design showing a man with right hand on his hip, dressed in a green, skirted garment with leaf-like shapes attached to the shoulders, waist, and neck, with matching green leggings and a green headpiece with white flowers

Costume design by Daniel Rabel for Ballet des nymphes bocagères de la forest sacrée

“The Staircase with Trophies” by Giovannia Battista Piranesi

Jusepe de Ribera (ca. 1591–1652)
Large grotesque head
Etching, ca. 1622
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Print Collection

Large grotesque head

This is one of Ribera’s earliest etchings, and one of only 16 prints that have been securely attributed to the artist. This work participates in the tradition of grotesque heads, a genre in which Leonardo da Vinci excelled and whose example numerous 16th- and 17th-century artists followed. The figure shown here is identified as suffering from scrofula, a disease with glandular swellings. The artist exaggerates his sitter’s symptoms by augmenting the size of the tumors, adding warts and a tumescent cap for further effect.

Holding Division: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Print Co…

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