Study for a Head of an Angel French school, 18th century charcoal on laid paper 49 x 45 cm The sheet depicts an idealised Angel's face seen from below, with the face turned to the right and the gaze raised, constructed through a soft chiaroscuro obtained by means of a refined modulation of the charcoal stroke and light chalk highlights. The large, vaporous hair, articulated in spiral curls with a strong plastic effect, reveals a fully Rococo taste and shows close links with French academic graphic art in the second half of the 18th century. The setting of the face, the close cut of the composition and the strongly painterly rendering of the chiaroscuro masses are reflected in a known engraving derived from an invention by Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre, an element that allows this sheet to be linked to the graphic fortune of the French master's compositions.The work seems to belong to that vast production of head studies, modèles de caractère and academic sheets intended both for the practice of pupils and for the engraving circulation of pictorial inventions, an extremely widespread practice in 18th-century French artistic culture. Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre, premier peintre du roi under Louis XV and a central figure in the Académie Royale, was the author of numerous preparatory studies characterised by a fluid sign, soft modelling and a strong expressive emphasis on heads, often replicated through engravings or atelier copies.