DOI Kapitel:
Chapter VIII: Female Portraits
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62110#0186
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VERROCCHIO
foreheads of the earlier fashion. As Dr. Mackowsky points
out, the date of the drawing may be approximately deter-
mined by this peculiar arrangement of the hair, the
elaboration of which was a reaction on the former mode.
Until the middle of the century the Italian ladies sup-
pressed the hair as much as possible ; they shaved the
forehead and eyebrows and drew such hair as they allowed
to remain tightly away from the face, covering it with
folded veils, as we see it in the busts of Desiderio and
Laurana and in the paintings of Piero dei Franceschi and
his school. Later the fashion changed, and its transition
state we see in Ghirlandaio’s paintings and in the Lichten-
stein portrait and Bargello bust by Verrocchio, where the
hair, smooth on the head, was tightly curled and clustered
in grape-like bunches on the cheeks. After 1470 the
dressing became more and more elaborate. Half-plaited,
half-fluttering loose, often, as in this drawing of Verrocchio,
fastened on the forehead with a jewel, wreathed in snake-
like coils round the head, interwoven with pearls and
ribbons, the hair, a few years earlier completely ignored,
then played the most important part in the lady’s face.
The fashion for elaborate coiffure was at its height towards
1480, at about which date the drawing may be placed.
VERROCCHIO
foreheads of the earlier fashion. As Dr. Mackowsky points
out, the date of the drawing may be approximately deter-
mined by this peculiar arrangement of the hair, the
elaboration of which was a reaction on the former mode.
Until the middle of the century the Italian ladies sup-
pressed the hair as much as possible ; they shaved the
forehead and eyebrows and drew such hair as they allowed
to remain tightly away from the face, covering it with
folded veils, as we see it in the busts of Desiderio and
Laurana and in the paintings of Piero dei Franceschi and
his school. Later the fashion changed, and its transition
state we see in Ghirlandaio’s paintings and in the Lichten-
stein portrait and Bargello bust by Verrocchio, where the
hair, smooth on the head, was tightly curled and clustered
in grape-like bunches on the cheeks. After 1470 the
dressing became more and more elaborate. Half-plaited,
half-fluttering loose, often, as in this drawing of Verrocchio,
fastened on the forehead with a jewel, wreathed in snake-
like coils round the head, interwoven with pearls and
ribbons, the hair, a few years earlier completely ignored,
then played the most important part in the lady’s face.
The fashion for elaborate coiffure was at its height towards
1480, at about which date the drawing may be placed.