Head-Baker

With Koen Fillet and art historian Dr Wendy Wauters.

The Phoebus Foundation’s collection includes an unusual painting which has an equally unusual title: Head-Baker. A baker’s servant, frozen in motion, with his cleaver raised high in the air, is poised to decapitate the man sitting in front of him with a well-aimed swing. The mysterious title combined with the strange scene raises many questions. Was there really a baker running around decapitating his customers? Is the man administering a humiliating punishment, carrying out an early form of plastic surgery, or is something else going on?

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2uLS1EhfwoZoE8uu6KnJrg?si=QwRBqFG5QAmXTLyeQ7UAxA

Unknown master, Head-Baker, c. 1600–1630. Bustling genre scene set in a workshop where human heads are kneaded, baked, and traded, populated by numerous figures in seventeenth-century dress, satirical and grotesque in tone. — Unknown Master, *Head-Baker*, c.1600-1630

Detail from Head-Baker (Unknown master, c. 1600–1630): interior of a bakery where human heads are placed into an oven and washed in tubs, with shelves of heads lining the background. — Detail, *Head-Baker*

Detail from Head-Baker (Unknown master, c. 1600–1630): figures in seventeenth-century dress gathered around seated individuals whose heads are being worked on, with baskets of heads and a grotesque, satirical depiction of an artisanal process. — Detail, *Head-Baker*

Detail from Head-Baker (Unknown master, c. 1600–1630): scene in a workshop-like interior where human heads are cut, shaped, and collected, showing seated customers, worktables, and a basket filled with heads, rendered in a satirical and grotesque manner. — Detail, *Head-Baker*

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