English: Bust - Head of a Young Man

About 1480;
Michael Erhart;
Germany, Ulm;
Carved limewood

Erhart probably made this head for a goldsmith, who would have used wooden models to design statuettes of precious metal. The present appearance as a bust is a later modification to appeal to collectors. This reflects the process by which models came to be valued as finished works in their own right.

He was probably trained in the Netherlands and the Upper Rhine and appears in the tax-rolls in Ulm in 1469, and became the leading sculptor there until his death in 1522. Most of his major works, for instance, the monochrome wood statues on the high altar of the Ulm Minster of about 1474-81, or the monumental stone figures for the Mount of Olives in front of the Minster do not survive. The busts of the choir-stalls in the Minster (about 1470), the Blaubeuren altarpiece (1493-94), and several small-scale sculptures do however give a clear picture of his contribution to the development of Late Gothic Sculpture in Ulm.