The extremely extensive collections left by Count Guglielmo Coronini Cronberg include a number of true masterpieces: paintings, sculptures, furniture, jewellery and other precious decorative art objects that testify to the evolution of taste over the past centuries and the refined collecting activities of the Coronini family.
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The two heads in the Coronini collections were not included in the group of 49 works repeatedly exhibited since 1793, as they had probably been previously sold by Messerschmidt's brother, who affixed the initials “F. M. Sch.” and perhaps also intervened with some cold finishing.
Unlike the other works in the series, which were able to stand on their own on a base directly incorporated into the bust, the Gorizian works, following subsequent reworking, instead rest on a wooden support, set into an alabaster pedestal.
Identified by scholars as Variant of the Greater Simplicity of Spirit, this head was named by Count Guglielmo Coronini the Man Looking at the Sun.
Dai documenti d’archivio risulta che fu il conte Guglielmo Coronini ad acquistare le tue teste nel 1937 dalla principessa Eleonora Palffy Daun, cugina di suo padre Carlo, per la cifra di 2000 scellini. Solo nel 1940, tuttavia, le opere furono importate in Italia e poi trasferite insieme agli altri beni di famiglia a Venezia per tutta la durata della seconda guerra mondiale. Eleonora, nata Nugent, aveva sposato nel 1889 il principe Vilmos Palffy Daun la cui famiglia, una delle più antiche e nobili casate ungheresi, aveva numerose proprietà nella città di Bratislava, tra cui anche il borgo di Zuckermandel in cui si trovava l’abitazione di Messerschmidt.
