Frans Floris I (Antwerp 1519/20-1570)

This theatrical Head of a man with a helmet (Mars?) was likely painted by Frans Floris as a head study and retained in his workshop to serve as a model for future compositions, a practice that constituted one of the most enduring innovations of his studio. Together with Head of a Woman (fig. 1; Oberlin, Allen Memorial Art Museum, inv. no. 1972.79) and Head of a Woman with a Diadem (Private collection, France; see E.H. Wouk, op. cit., pp. 219 and 221), this picture is among Floris’ most sensuous and arresting works, expressed with an immediacy and emotion not readily seen in his large-scale pictures.
This study was used as a model for the figure of Adam in Floris’ Adam and Eve (Florence, Palazzo Pitti, inv. no. 1082), and the same head, with minor variations, appears in the figure of Mars in his Mars, Venus, and Cupid Surprised by the Gods (Sibiu, Muzeul Național Brukenthal, inv. no. 1241).