MODEL BOOKS

 

The most famous album of model drawings from the period is that of the architect and stonemason Villard de Honnecourt (ca. 1225-ca. 1250). The purpose of the album is the subject of controversy. Originally it was thought to have served as a training manual for architects, but scholars now think the models were mnemonic devices for architects to remember things they had learnt orally. Another type of model was portrait-like facial types, like the Bearded Prophet below, that could be incorporated within a variety of compositions.

 

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The Album of Villard de Honnecourt, early 13th century, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
The Album of Villard de Honnecourt, early 13th century, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
The Album of Villard de Honnecourt, early 13th century, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
The Album of Villard de Honnecourt, early 13th century, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
Anonymous Bohemian artist, Head of a Bearded Man, 1360-80, pen and grey-brown ink, brush with grey-black and brown wash, traces of white gouache highlights, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Anonymous Bohemian artist, Head of a Bearded Man, 1360-80, pen and grey-brown ink, brush with grey-black and brown wash, traces of white gouache highlights, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This very refined and unusually well-preserved study may have been created by an artist in the immediate circle of the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV (r. 1355-78) at Prague. The sheet was probably made as an exemplar in a model-book rather than as a preliminary study for a specific work.