Head of an Apostle

Head of an Apostle by Ribera, at the Sheffield galleries, is a study that may relate to one of his apostle series or serve as an independent character study. Such heads were both preparatory exercises and saleable works in their own right. Ribera painted his saints with unflinching naturalism rooted in his early study of Caravaggio's Rome before settling in Naples in 1616. Working under Spanish viceregal patronage, he produced devotional images combining brutal physical realism with profound ...

The concentrated focus on a single face allows Ribera to deploy his full powers of naturalistic observation. The heavy brow, deep-set eyes, and grizzled beard are rendered with the tactile specificity that makes Ribera's heads among the most physically present images in Baroque painting.