Studies of a Head and a Foreshortened Hand c. 17th century

This red chalk drawing presents studies of a head and a dramatically foreshortened hand. The hand, positioned as if reaching out from the picture plane, immediately seizes our attention. The motif of the outstretched hand is a powerful gesture found throughout art history. Think of Caravaggio's depiction of Doubting Thomas, where the probing finger embodies skepticism, or Michelangelo's God creating Adam, where the almost touching hands symbolize the spark of life. Our anonymous artist plays with this visual language, connecting to a lineage of artists exploring human emotion and divine power. The psychological weight of this gesture—reaching, offering, or perhaps accusing—engages us on a deeply subconscious level. The study of a head in profile complements the hand, yet lacks its dynamic tension. Together, they reveal the artist's fascination with capturing the human form in both repose and action, echoing the eternal quest to understand and represent the human condition. The enduring appeal of these motifs demonstrates the cyclical nature of artistic inquiry, and how artists continually revisit and reinterpret the visual vocabulary of their predecessors.