The Belvedere Museum in Vienna is presenting a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the 18th-century sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, showcasing his famous grotesque portrait busts alongside his lesser-known conventional works. The exhibition, titled "Franz Xaver Messerschmidt – More Than Character Heads," runs until April 6, 2026, at the Lower Belvedere and aims to provide a more complete understanding of the artist beyond his world-famous bizarre facial sculptures.
The museum is displaying eight of its 16 character heads in the special exhibition space, while the remaining pieces stay in the Upper Belvedere alongside other Austrian masters like Gustav Klimt and Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller. These peculiar portrait busts, created starting in 1771, feature exaggerated facial expressions that have long captivated visitors and practically invite them to pose and make faces in response. The strange portraits with their grotesque features have consistently been among the most popular attractions for Belvedere visitors.
Curators Katharina Lovecky and Georg Lechner are attempting to move away from the traditional narrative that suggests there were "two different Messerschmidts" – the conventional court sculptor and the creator of bizarre heads who was supposedly mentally ill. Instead, they want to present the artist within the proper context of his historical period. The exhibition features full-figure statues that Messerschmidt created of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband Franz I. Stephan, which are now positioned in the central hall of the Lower Belvedere.
Messerschmidt lived during the emerging Age of Enlightenment, when science and reason were beginning to influence thinking and society. The artist captured this spirit of intellectual transformation in several works, including his 1773 portrait of Prince Joseph Wenzel I of Liechtenstein, created a year after the prince's death. In this sculpture, Messerschmidt depicted the nobleman as a modern philosopher without a wig or symbols of power. Similarly, he created a bust of Maria Theresa's personal physician Gerald van Swieten, who fought against superstitions like the widespread belief in vampires.
Born in southern Germany in 1736, Messerschmidt came to Vienna in 1755 and later settled in Pressburg (now Bratislava) in 1777, where he remained until his death in 1783. The exhibition reveals that Messerschmidt himself never called his famous works "character heads" – he referred to them as "Kopfstücke" (head pieces) and only gave them numbers. The dramatic titles like "A Gloomy, Sinister Man" were added by later generations.
The mystery surrounding why Messerschmidt created these unconventional heads remains unsolved. He produced 49 of these sculptures starting in 1771, working without commissions and sometimes using expensive materials like alabaster. While grotesque figures existed in art before his time, and art academies used pattern books to teach students how to express emotions, Messerschmidt's heads stood completely outside these established traditions.
Some scholars suggest the heads might represent an early example of artistic autonomy or even a biting commentary on the academic art establishment. Messerschmidt had suffered a career setback when he was denied a promised professorship in Vienna, leading to ongoing debates about whether this disappointment affected his mental state. His association with Franz Anton Mesmer, a doctor who claimed to heal people with magnetized water and whose name gave rise to the English word "mesmerize," further fueled speculation about the artist's rational state of mind.
The exhibition illustrates how reason and irrationality were engaged in an intense struggle during this historical period, which could make the show particularly relevant to contemporary audiences if it had been conceived as a broader portrait of the Enlightenment era. The curators note that there was certainly enough space in the Lower Belvedere's long suite of rooms for such an expanded approach.
While the exhibition provides valuable historical context and scholarly insights, some critics feel it could have benefited from including the echoes that later artists like Arnulf Rainer, Tony Cragg, and Marc Quinn found in Messerschmidt's work. The show focuses primarily on historical analysis and is largely composed of smaller-format pieces, giving the impression that it mainly illustrates serious research work rather than creating a more dynamic museum experience.
The Belvedere Museum owns a total of 26 works by Messerschmidt, making it one of the most significant collections of the artist's work. The current exhibition successfully demonstrates that Messerschmidt was much more than just the creator of bizarre heads – he was a skilled sculptor who worked within the artistic and intellectual currents of his time while also pushing boundaries in ways that continue to fascinate viewers more than two centuries later.
