Busts

While fulfilling occasional commissions, Messerschmidt focused obsessively on a series of sculptures that he referred to as ‘Kopfst�cke’, or ‘head pieces.” he completed no fewer than sixty-nine, and the sculptor appears to have held on to the heads throughout his life. Each of these works was unique, either cast in a soft tin alloy, which the artist favoured, or carved in local alabaster.

This drawing of Messerschmidt’s busts was made by Matthias Rudolph Thoma (1792-1869) in 1839.