/internal/media/dispatcher/65341/full"Character Head" No. 11Das hohe Alter1771/1783[Franz Xaver Messerschmidt]Franz Xaver MesserschmidtYellowish alabaster With the lower lip everted, the chin pushed forward, and the eyes—wide open and without pupils—the expression of this bust by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt remains a puzzle. Beginning in the late 1770s, the sculptor worked on a series of portrait busts with a rich range of facial expressions. This work is one of ten alabaster “Character Heads.” They were acquired in the late nineteenth century, at the initiative of the architect Camillo Sitte, as teaching aids for the Vienna State School of Applied Arts. The group later entered the Imperial and Royal Austrian Museum of Art and Industry (today the MAK—Museum of Applied Arts) before being transferred to the Austrian Gallery Belvedere in two installments, in 1922 and 1964.Sculpturehttps://sammlungtest.belvedere.at/objects/8082/rdf