Art Institute of Chicago

Head of an Apostle

French; Paris

Date

c. 1210

Medium

Limestone

Culture

France

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

This elongated head—with its piercing, almond-shaped eyes and prominent mouth with parted lips—projects a commanding presence in limestone, despite its absent body. The unidentified subject likely represents an apostle from the biblical New Testament: Such full-length and larger-than-life-size depictions of Jesus’s followers often decorated columns or door jambs in Gothic cathedrals. The stylistic qualities of this head correspond to the architectural decoration produced for the west facade of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris around 1200. The symmetry of the head, the locks carved into cascading waves, the leanness of the cheeks, and the physical grandeur lacking emotional content, all resemble sculptures on that part of the building. The missing nose attests to the head’s storied history. It was allegedly excavated in the mid-1800s during the modernization of Paris; revolutionaries might have deliberately damaged and buried it half a century earlier because of the cathedral’s long association with the monarchy. This provenance, however, remains unsubstantiated. Neutron activation analysis has shown that the limestone used for this object derives from the same quarry as other figures from Notre-Dame, as well as the cathedral at Sens, about seventy-five miles from Paris. This sculpture awaits further technical, stylistic, and provenance research to verify its origins.

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