Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione

From the series of ”Small heads in Oriental Headdress”, c. 1645-50.

This etching represents the motif of an exoticising oriental head that Castiglione returned to many times in the 1640s. Perhaps partly inspired by the foreign traders who frequented the port city of Genoa, these character heads also stem back to the prints of Rembrandt and Jan Lievens. Castiglione produced two series of these exotic types, both large and small, in which he demonstrated his inventiveness and ability to produce a rich chiaroscuro of dramatic lighting with nothing more than an etcher’s needle.