The German sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt created his most famous work in Bratislava (then called Pressburg). In 1777, after a mental breakdown ruined his high-society career in Vienna, he moved into a studio below Bratislava Castle to live and work in isolation. According to records, Messerschmidt believed he was being haunted by evil spirits. To protect himself, he worked in front of a mirror, pinching his ribs and twisting his face into extreme expressions to fight off the demons. He captured these grimaces in a series of sculptures known as the "Character Heads," aiming to create 64 distinct human expressions. Today, experts still debate whether his behavior was caused by a severe mental illness or a painful physical condition like Crohn's disease.

When Messerschmidt died in near obscurity in August 1783, some 69 busts stood in his room. Forty-nine of them were later numbered and exhibited in Vienna as the Charakterköpfe. Because people at the time found the unnerving, grimacing faces too deeply unsettling to look at, they were eventually sold off one by one at an auction in 1889, scattering into private hands. Today, these works are artistic masterpieces worth millions; the Louvre paid $4.8 million for just one in 2005.

The ultimate irony is that the city where these legendary heads were birthed kept almost nothing. There is even no dedicated Messerschmidt museum in Bratislava, and not a single original Character Head remains on permanent public display. However, during a recent renovation of Zuckermandel—the neighbourhood where he spent his final three years — the city named a square after him and placed replicas out for public view.
It is here that the title photo was taken:



I learned much of this in a café named after him in the Bratislava's centre, where the owners keep his memory alive with copies of the heads and a wall recounting his story. Among them is a white bust replicating the only work securely identified as his self-portrait, The Artist as He Imagined Himself Laughing — where the simple cap, worn instead of a formal wig, says everything about the man's defiant character.



Here's another replica from the Café Messerschmidt:



Aside from the café and the square, the Slovak National Gallery and the Bratislava City Gallery display various casts and replicas. The remaining photos were taken inside the Bratislava City Gallery at Mirbach Palace. Featured there is the bronze replica of Character Head No. 49 (Character Study Strong Smell), alongside the bearded Capuchin. Unlike the nearby Character Heads, this Capuchin bust is a true survivor: a lead-tin sculpture made in Bratislava around 1780, it stands today as the only original work by Messerschmidt that the city still owns.