1778
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Study of the head of St. Michael is a 1778 by Jacques-Louis David, a Neoclassicism work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This sketch shows a woman’s head turned slightly to the side. Her hair is drawn in loose, wavy lines, and her face is shaded with quick strokes. The paper has faint marks where the pencil pressed hard, giving her features a soft but clear shape. The artist used light pencil lines to show the folds in her collar and the curve of her neck. The drawing looks like it was made fast—maybe while studying how light hits hair and skin. Next, check out cross-hatching to see how artists build shadows with layers of lines.
The drawing is a study of Saint Michael's head, based on a detail from a painting by Guido Reni housed in S. Maria della Concezione, Rome. Executed in 1778, the work is rendered in graphite and includes an inscription.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Jacques-Louis David was born in Paris on 30 August 1748 into a bourgeois family; his father died in a duel when the boy was nine, and a maternal uncle guided his education.
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