Man with moustache wearing a fur headdress, facing left

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609-1664) was an Italian Baroque artist, painter, printmaker and draftsman of the Genoese school. He is best known now for his elaborate etchings and engravings, as well as being the inventor of the printmaking technique of monotyping.

His etchings are remarkable for light and shade, and have even earned for Castiglione the name of a second Rembrandt. He was exposed to Rembrandt's etching by 1630. He depicted portraits (as here), historical and devotional pieces, as well as landscapes, but chiefly excelled in fairs, markets and rural scenes with animals, responding to the influence of Flemish artists.

This etching comes from Castiglione's series <em>Studies of heads in Oriental headdress</em>. Texturally and technically brilliant, it also has the psychological depth that we associate with Rembrandt. The chances were that Castiglione's model was a nobody, perhaps plucked off the street; here he is imbued with introspective, philosophical qualities. The fur headdress almost certainly belonged to the artist, and would have been in ready supply - though at a cost - in the 'multicultural' port and trading centre that was Genoa.

While Rembrandt’s variations on the fantastic or expressive head (<em>tronie</em>  in Dutch) were certainly influential on Castiglione, the Italian’s own renditions were widely imitated in the next century by the Tiepolo family and, in France, by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, master of the Rococo. No doubt the wide dissemination of Castiglione’s <em>Heads</em> were due in part not only to their inventiveness, but for their central place in his work, as he etched not one but two series of heads (the <em>Large</em> and the <em>Small</em> or “<em>Exotic” Heads.</em>  A particularly effective comparison with this etching is Rembrandt’s <em>Second  Oriental Head after Jan Lievens</em> (1635), which preceded it by about 10-15 years. Te Papa owns a number of cognate Rembrandts, including <em>Head of old man in a fur cap with eyes closed, Old man with a fur cap and flowing beard </em>and perhaps most famously <em>Bearded man in an oriental cap and robe</em>, formerly believed to be Rembrandt's father (1964-0001-4).

See:

Culture Spectator, 'Giovanni Castiglione at the National Gallery of Art...', https://culturespectator.com/2012/06/27/giovanni-benedetto-castiglione-at-the-national-gallery-of-art-til-8th-july/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Benedetto_Castiglione

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    August 2018