Albert Besnard, French, born Paris, - Three Portrait Heads of a Woman - 1915 - T-Shirt

Three studies of one woman's head sit side by side on a sheet of pen and brown ink, each turned to a different angle, as the artist works out the structure of her face and hair.

Visual Elements & Composition

The sheet is built from three overlapping head studies. The upper left shows the head in three-quarter view, with dark hatched strokes building the hair and a loose outline for the neck. The upper right is a clean profile facing left, its hair swept back in long, directional lines. The larger lower study dominates the sheet, the head tilted and turned, its features set in quick cross-hatching and its hair falling in a heavy mass toward the shoulder. Handwritten ink inscriptions run across the top margin, and short notes sit at the lower left. The palette is restrained: sepia ink on parchment beige.

Meaning & Symbolism

This is a working study. Albert Besnard, a French painter and printmaker who won the Prix de Rome and worked in Rome early in his career, tests the same sitter from several angles to find the rhythm of the hair and the structure of the head. The repeated profiles show attention to form over finish, and the quick hatching carries immediacy. The inscription, a dedication to American friends dated Rome, 21 March 1915, makes the sheet personal, a gift as much as an exercise in observation.

Carried Onto the Tee

A tee is worn close to the body and seen from every side as the wearer moves, so the sheet's shifting viewpoints suit the garment well. The three profiles read as one figure turning, and the inscribed sheet’s handwriting stays visible at the chest as a reminder of its origin in an ink drawing made in 1915.