Study for the Head of Christ

Born to an established Sephardic Jewish family, Brandon studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, with J.B.C. Corot, who prodded him to visit Italy. The young artist traveled to Rome in 1856 and remained until 1863. He met Degas while attending life drawing sessions at the Villa Medici in the evening. In search of a project, he sets his sights on developing a mural cycle devoted to St. Bridget of Sweden for Santa Brigida in the Piazza Farnese, Rome.
As Marsha Stevenson has outlined, Brandon met Reverend Basil Moreau, who had leased Santa Brigida. The artist was keen to decorate the room where the fourteenth-century mystic lived with help from a fellow artist. Since the work was unpaid--Moreau lacked the funds, and Brandon could afford the costs--Brandon tackled it alone. He produced over thirty paintings and a stained glass window. Many of the paintings were shown first at the Paris Salons in the 1860s, and the compositions supplied the basis for numerous variations that would help make his reputation. Back in Paris, by the 1870s, Brandon pivoted from Christian subject matter, which had occasioned praise and criticism. He found a niche in producing history and religious subjects with Jewish themes, especially education and religious instruction in synagogues. Later, Degas would invite him to exhibit his work in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874.
This bust-length study of Christ relates to a figure in one of the Santa Brigida paintings depicting a saint's vision containing Christ supported by angels in the upper register. It seems to be a study from the model and an independent drawing, highly finished and trimmed to an elegant oval format.