Studieblad met zestien hoofden 1776 - 1815

Marie Lambertine Coclers created this study sheet of sixteen heads using pen and brown ink, sometime around the late 18th century. The composition immediately strikes you with its grid-like arrangement of faces, each unique yet uniformly rendered in delicate strokes. Cocles’s skill in capturing a range of expressions and characters with minimal lines is remarkable. Notice how the varying hats and head coverings frame each face, adding layers of identity and perhaps even social status. The light and shadow play across their features, lending depth and personality. The even distribution of heads across the page rejects traditional perspective, flattening the subjects into an almost abstract pattern. This challenges our conventional understanding of portraiture, pushing it towards a more conceptual exploration of form and expression. Consider how this sheet functions not merely as a collection of portraits, but as a study in the fundamentals of representation itself, where each line and contour contributes to a larger discourse on the nature of identity.