/internal/media/dispatcher/65356/full"Character Head" No. 10Der Bekümmerte1775/1777[Franz Xaver Messerschmidt]Franz Xaver MesserschmidtTin cast (99.0% tin) Forehead furrowed, eyebrows drawn together, eyes wide open, their pupils blank: in this bust made of almost pure tin, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt renders extreme expressions of the human face with great skill, yet it remains unclear what he intended to convey. The “Character Heads,” a series he developed without a formal commission, have inspired countless interpretations, and the busts have often been given misleading titles. Some readings even attempt to draw speculative conclusions about the sculptor’s life and personality from the works themselves. Messerschmidt may have conceived this series in response to the idealized neoclassical portraits of the era, which avoided any kind of exaggerated expression.Sculpturehttps://sammlungtest.belvedere.at/objects/1995/rdf