An enigma wrapped in sculptures: Franz Xaver Messerschmidt and his baroque busts. An exhibition at Lower Belvedere explores his oeuvre in the context of the era.
- An insightful look at an iconic sculptor
- Numerous works to view
- Includes 8 of the Character Heads
- …and art by contemporaries like Hogarth
- Runs Oct 31, 2025 – April 6, 2026
- Book Lower Belvedere tickets*
- See also:
More than character heads
(Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, Character Head No. 25, 1771/83; press photo © Johannes Stoll / Belvedere, Vienna)
Life has its mysteries. And since art allegedly mirrors life, then it naturally has its mysteries too. One of which is quite what Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736-1783) intended with his series of sculptures known as the Character Heads.
I’ve written elsewhere about these busts, which feature faces with unusual expressions (to say the least). Popular interpretations are that they represent mental health conditions or a series of character studies.
Popular, however, does not always mean accurate. And a special Messerschmidt exhibition at Lower Belvedere takes a more nuanced look at the sculptures.
The exhibition has a far wider remit, though, and digs a little deeper into the artist’s work and biography, sheds light on possible influences, and finds parallels in the art of contemporaries.
So, while we see eight of the 16 Character Heads in the Belvedere collection, the displays also cover Messerschmidt’s other sculptural output.
The artist portrayed numerous important personalities among the nobility, aristocracy, and intellectual community of the era.
In the first exhibition gallery, for example, we have Messerschmidt’s fire-gilded busts of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Franz I. Stephan (commissioned by Prince Joseph Wenzel I of Liechtenstein).
(Joseph Ducreux, Self-Portrait, called La surprise (Surprise), c. 1790–1800, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; press photo © Anna Danielsson / Nationalmuseum, Stockholm)
Clearly, then, the sculptor was no capricious outsider. And yet those “strange” Character Heads seem (at first glance) to suggest otherwise. A mystery indeed.
The exhibition opens our eyes to other possibilities, where Messerschmidt’s works reflect the obsessions of the time and might be considered a contextual response to the enormous changes in society and human intellectual progress in the late 1700s.
That first gallery, for example, juxtaposes the artist’s bust of Prince Joseph Wenzel I of Liechtenstein with one by Balthasar F. Moll. The former a human face with none of the pomp and circumstance of the latter.
Messerschmidt’s stripped-down approach to faces and expressions both normal and extraordinary perhaps mirrored a growing focus on the individual, independent of social status.
We see works by other artists of the time that underpin this thesis, such as William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress series of plates. It seems Messerschmidt was not alone.
As such, the Character Heads were perhaps not quite the aberrations we take them for.
(Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, Self-Portrait, Laughing, c. 1777–83; press photo © Szépmuvészeti Múzeum / Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, 2025)
Nevertheless, while the busts might sit on the spectrum of plausibility for the time, the extreme representations still represent an incursion into new territory. A toe, foot and leg over the line of convention, but without entirely losing the connection to contemporary trends.
What did Messerschmidt hope to achieve?
Perhaps Franz Xaver merely thumbed his nose with a wink and smile at the more placid and conservative elements of baroque portraiture.
We shall never know for sure. Messerschmidt left no hints for us. Although he called the series Head Pieces, which suggests Character Heads might be a misleading description.
Fascinating as the busts and surrounding context are, I also found the exhibition a useful reminder that historical portraiture served more than a purely representational function.
Paintings and sculptures reflected cultural & intellectual developments and served as a commentary on both. Where people are sometimes just people and not merely a position in society. Today’s art has no monopoly on such things.
Dates, tickets & tips
Explore the enigma of Messerschmidt’s iconic works from October 31st, 2025 to April 6th, 2026. An entrance ticket for or from Lower Belvedere includes the exhibition.
(Booking service provided by Tiqets.com*, who I am an affiliate of)
Two tips for you if you’re at the Messerschmidt exhibition…
- The Lower Belvedere location has a second special exhibition running that’s an absolute highlight: the Cézanne, Monet, Renoir exhibition features works from the Museum Langmatt collection of French impressionism
- Pop across the gardens to Upper Belvedere, which has a number of Messerschmidt’s character heads in the permanent display there
How to get there
I have a whole article with directions for Belvedere, but the 71 tram that skirts the western edge of the old town is your best bet, as it drops you pretty much outside the entrance to the lower palace.
Address: Rennweg 6, 1030 Vienna