User:Primaler/WikiBlog/2016/04/22/character-heads-by-franz-xaver-messerschmidt

Character heads by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt

I've recently reorganized and updated the Commons category for the famous "character heads" by the Austrian sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736–1783).

At the moment, we have images for 19 out of the 49 heads known to survive.

The rest can be seen in the 2015 catalogue raisonné by Maria Pötzl-Malikova.

Images by: Jssfrk, Yelkrokoyade, CSvBibra, DALIBRI, Herb (daHöab), Bubamara, Anagoria, AndreasPraefcke, FA2010, Gryffindor.

Cheers, guys!

Unfortunately, I was only able to locate of the 45 photographs of the heads published in 1906 and 1909 by the Viennese photographer Josef Wlha (1842–1918). These images are definitely in public domain by now and would cover most of the remaining lacunas (heads Nos. 4, 31, 41, 49 are not part of the portfolio). Perhaps, someone will have better luck with this, so here are the references:
 * Josef Wlha (1906) Franz Xaver Messerschmidt: Charakterköpfe
 * Josef Wlha and Ludwig Hevesi (1909) Franz Xaver Messerschmidt's Werke