Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (German, 1736-1783)
"The Beaked": Alabaster bust, height 43 cm, 1770
Austrian State Gallery, Vienna.

Messerschmidt created some 69 nearly life-size "character heads" with very strong, sometimes extreme, facial expressions: grins or smiles, sticking out tongues, raised brows.
Very finely executed, these heads at reflect a growing scientific interest in facial anatomy and expressions in Europe at that time.