Male Head | Harvard Art Museums

Gallery Text

By the fourteenth century, Paris was a large urban center with artists organized in guilds working for the royal court, the clergy, and bourgeois patrons. Guillaume de Nourriche is known from the tax rolls of the city, where he is listed as a sculptor paid to make two figures of apostles for Paris’ Hôpital Saint-Jacques-aux-Pèlerins (Hospital of Saint James of the Pilgrims). The hospital was an infirmary for returning pilgrims, many of whom had gone to the popular shrine of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. One of the figures made by Guillaume remains in Paris, and stylistic similarities suggest that this head belonged to the other figure. With its softly molded face, flesh beneath the eyes, and slightly open mouth, this head attests to the increasingly naturalistic and delicate style developed by Gothic sculptors of the fourteenth century.

Identification and Creation

Object Number: 1943.1031
People: Attributed to Guillaume de Nourriche, French (active c. 1297-1330)
Previously attributed to Unidentified Artist
Title: Male Head
Classification: Sculpture
Work Type: sculpture, head
Date: c. 1319-1324
Places: Creation Place: Europe, France, Ile-de-France
Culture: French
Persistent Link: https://hvrd.art/o/230070

Location

Location: Level 2, Room 2440, Medieval Art

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Physical Descriptions

Medium: Limestone, biomicrite
Dimensions: 30 x 22.5 x 19.8 cm (11 13/16 x 8 7/8 x 7 13/16 in.)
with base: 49.8 x 22.5 x 19.8 cm (19 5/8 x 8 7/8 x 7 13/16 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History: Jules-Marie Jeuniette, Paris, France, sold [through Galerie Manzi-Joyant, Paris, 1919, no 208]; to [Demotte, Inc., New York, NY], sold; to Grenville Lindall Winthrop, New York, NY, 1919, bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop

Accession Year

1943

Object Number

1943.1031

Division

European and American Art

Contact

am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

Permissions

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Publication History

Hartmut Krohn, "Die Skulptur der Querhaus fassaden an der Kathedrale von Rouen", Aachener Kunstblätter (1971), vol. 40, pp. 130-131, ill. 88
"Gothic Sculpture in American Collections: The Checklist: I: The New England Museums", GESTA, ed. Dorothy W. Gillerman (1980), vol. XIX, no. 2, no. 25, repr.
Anita F. Moskowitz, Gothic Sculpture in America, I: The New England Museums, ed. Dorothy W. Gillerman, Garland Publishing, Inc. (New York, 1989), no. 98 pp. 130-132, repr.
Paul Williamson, [Review of "Gothic Sculpture in New England I"], The Burlington Magazine (June 1990), vol. CXXXII, no. 1047, pp. 418-419, p. 418, under no. 98
The Limestone Sculpture Provenance Project, website, 2004

Exhibition History

Re-View: S422-423 Western Art of the Middle Ages & Renaissance, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/16/2008 - 06/18/2011
32Q: 2440 Medieval, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

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1943.1031: Male Head