Henry Moore Artwork Catalogue
Head of the Virgin
Head of the Virgin
In the year following his admission
into the Royal College of Art in London, Moore was tasked by the Head of Sculpture,
Derwent Wood, to create a copy of a work from the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Moore copied Domenico Rosselli’s marble relief of the Virgin and Child (c.
1476-98) but much to the defiance of his professor, Moore chose to carve
directly into the marble instead of the suggested plaster copy followed by a
pointing machine for translation into marble. Going a step further, Moore
carved small holes similar to those left by the pointing machine in an attempt
to deceive Wood.
Being only one of a few early
surviving works by Moore, it is remarkable that he showed signs of strong
authority in the way his work should be conceived at such an early stage of his
career. Head of the Virgin (LH 6) mimics
modernist qualities rather than academic sculpture, evidenced by the greater
three-dimensionality in comparison to Rosselli’s original and the unpolished
edges. Perhaps Moore’s drawing teacher who he described as being ‘the only
teacher I learned anything from in a useful way’ was partially responsible for
his acute awareness of light and the relationship between two-and-three
dimensionality.