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Secondary sourcePaintingc. 1791

Two Heads: Michelangelo and Raphael

Johann Kaspar Lavater · c. 1791

A pencil drawing pairing imagined profile portraits of Michelangelo and Raphael, made by the Swiss physiognomist Johann Kaspar Lavater to illustrate his theories about facial character and genius.

An 18th-century imagined portrait of Michelangelo used to illustrate ideas about genius and facial character, long after his death.

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Red-chalk sepia drawing on cream paper within a thin ruled border. Two male heads in profile-three-quarter view: on the left, an older bearded man with curly hair, labeled 1; on the right, a younger man in a flat cap with long hair, labeled 2.
Johann Kaspar Lavater, Two Heads: Michelangelo and Raphael, c. 1791. Wellcome Collection, London.

About this source

What it is

This is a red-chalk drawing on cream paper by Johann Kaspar Lavater, made around 1791. It shows two male heads side by side: an older bearded man labelled as Michelangelo, and a younger man in a cap labelled as Raphael. It is held today by the Wellcome Collection in London.

Why it matters

Lavater was a pioneer of physiognomy, the idea that a person's face reveals their character. He used imagined portraits of famous artists like Michelangelo and Raphael to argue that genius could be read in facial features. The drawing tells us more about how later generations idealised Renaissance masters than about what Michelangelo actually looked like.

Look closer

  • Does this drawing look like it was made from life, or from imagination?
  • Why might an 18th-century writer want to connect a person's face to their talent?
  • What does this source tell us about Michelangelo's reputation centuries after his death?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Michelangelo Buonarroti on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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