Self-portrait facts for kids

Rembrandt's Self-Portrait with Two Circles (c. 1665–1669). Rembrandt was possibly the first artist in history to fully transform self-portraiture into a sophisticatedly developed genre, in its own right.

A Self portrait is a picture of the artist drawing it. The earliest example of a self-portrait made was Jan van Eyck in 1433. The most famous self portrait painter was Vincent van Gogh. He painted a picture of himself 37 times from 1886 to 1889.

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Vincent van Gogh, Self-portrait without beard, end September 1889, (F 525), Oil on canvas, 40 × 31 cm., Private collection. This may have been Van Gogh's last self-portrait. Given as a birthday gift to his mother.
Self-portrait by Judith Leyster, a Dutch Golden Age painter, mostly of genre subjects. NGA, 1630. In reality, she probably did not wear expensive clothes like these while painting.
Pieter Claesz, Vanitas with Violin and Glass Ball (detail), the artist is visible in the reflection, 1625.
Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940, Nickolas Muray Collection, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin
Joseph Wright of Derby Self-portrait (1765-1768)
Self-Portrait of Van Gogh with head bandaged, after he (debatedly) cut off part of his ear.
Vincent van Gogh, Self Portrait, dedicated to Gauguin, 1888
Rembrandt, The Artist in his Studio, 1628, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Las Meninas, painted in 1656, shows Diego Velázquez working at the easel to the left.
Sandro Botticelli's 1475 painting of the Adoration of the Magi has an "inserted self-portrait". The position in the (right) corner, and the gaze out to the viewer, are very typical of such self-portraits.
Masaccio inserted self-portrait from the Brancacci Chapel frescoes (as is the Filippino Lippi), 1424–1426.
Piero della Francesca as a sleeping soldier in his Resurrection, 1463, fresco, Sansepolcro.
Filippino Lippi as a figure in his Martyrdom of Saint Peter, fresco, 1481–82, Brancacci Chapel, Florence. He is at the extreme right of a crowded composition.
Caterina van Hemessen's 1548 self-portrait, perhaps the oldest self-portrait of a female oil-painter, though much earlier examples of manuscript painters exist.
Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532–1625) of Cremona served as court painter to the Queen of Spain, and painted several self-portraits and many images of her family. c. 1556
Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, 1630s, Royal Collection. Note the pulled-up sleeve on the arm holding the brush.
Mary Beale, Self-portrait, c. 1675–1680, She became one of the most important portrait painters of 17th-century England, and has been described as the first professional female English painter.
Angelica Kauffman, self-portrait, 1780–1785, a successful painter in her time, she was a great friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, 1785, with two pupils. A "subjects-eye" view of the painter at work. It seems likely that women society portraitists did actually paint wearing fashionable clothes like this.
Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun painted several self-portraits that were hugely successful in the Paris Salons, and was influential in pioneering an "informal" fashion style at the end of the Ancien Régime. At 22, 1782.
Marie-Denise Villers, Young Woman Drawing, 1801, thought to be her self-portrait, and her most famous and finest painting. Originally attributed to Jacques-Louis David.
Marie Ellenrieder, self portrait, 1819. A German religious artist and the first woman to enter the Academy of Munich.
Mary Cassatt was an American portrait painter who specialized in portraits of women and children, 1878.
Marie Bashkirtseff self-portrait, 1880 was a Russian born artist who died at twenty-five. A large number of Bashkirtseff's works were destroyed by the Nazis during World War II.
Gwen John (1902) also mostly painted women and children.
Zinaida Serebriakova, At the Dressing-Table (1909), was among the first female Russian painters of distinction.
Ilka Gedő, Double Self-Portrait, 1985. The number of self-portraits on paper is about 370 and there are eight self-portraits in oil.
Miyamoto Musashi, Samurai, writer and artist, c. 1640.
Hakuin Ekaku was a Zen monk, who painted many self-portraits of himself as sages of the past, 1764, Tokyo.
Motoori Norinaga, late 18th century, Japan
Hokusai, early 19th century, Japan
Another Hokusai, Louvre
Kikuchi Yōsai, 1856–7, Japan.
Chen Hongshou, China, 1635
Ren Xiong, a member of the Shanghai school, c.1850
Saint Dunstan, then artist-Abbot of Glastonbury, prostrates himself before a giant Christ. Inscribed "Remember, I beg you, merciful Christ, to protect Dunstan, and do not permit the storms of the underworld to swallow me up". Later he became Archbishop of Canterbury. c. 950 (cropped at bottom).
Eadwine the Scribe whose self portrait is accompanied by the inscription "I am the chief of scribes, and neither my praise nor fame shall die; shout out, oh my letter, who I may be. By its fame your script proclaims you, Eadwine, whom the painted figure represents, alive through the ages, whose genius the beauty of this book demonstrates. Receive, O God, the book and its donor as an acceptable gift." Canterbury, c. 1150s.
Peter Parler, late fourteenth century, from Prague Cathedral, where he was master architect and sculptor.
Lorenzo Ghiberti on the Gates of Paradise, Baptisterio, Florence self portrait, early 15th century
Jan van Eyck, Portrait of a Man in a Turban (actually a chaperon), 1433, National Gallery, generally regarded as a self-portrait, which would make it the earliest Western panel portrait after antiquity.
Rogier van der Weyden, as Saint Luke, makes a drawing for his painting of the Virgin. Boston, c. 1440.
Jean Fouquet, c. 1450, a very early portrait miniature, and if the Van Eyck above is excluded, the oldest individual Western painted self-portrait.
Andrea Mantegna, c. 1474, includes himself, as court artist, in his appropriate place in this fresco of the Gonzaga court.
Israhel van Meckenem and his wife, engraving c. 1490, the earliest portrait print.
Dürer at thirteen, silverpoint, Albertina, 1484
Dürer at about twenty, 1491–92, drawing, Metropolitan
Albrecht Dürer Self-portrait 1493. oil, originally on vellum Louvre, Paris. This is among the earliest known formal self-portraits. He is dressed in Italian fashion, reflecting his international success.
Dürer's last self-portrait, 1500—unmistakably Christ-like
Gentile Bellini, black chalk, 1496 or earlier, Berlin
Nuremberg sculptor Adam Kraft, self-portrait from St Lorenz Church, 1490s.
Probable self-portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1512–1515
Nicholas Hilliard, self-portrait miniature, 1577
A young Rembrandt, c. 1628, when he was 22. Partly an exercise in chiaroscuro. Rijksmuseum
Etching and burin, c. 1630. Probably an exercise in capturing facial expressions for larger paintings.
Rembrandt in 1632, when he was enjoying great success as a fashionable portraitist in this style.
Role-playing in Self-portrait as an oriental Potentate with a Kris, etching, 1634.
1640, wearing a costume in the style of over a century earlier. National Gallery
Vienna c. 1655, oil on walnut, cut down in size.
Again in antique costume, 1658, Oil on canvas Frick Collection. His largest self-portrait, for which a new mirror may have been used.
Dated 1669, the year he died, though he looks much older in other portraits. National Gallery, London
Pieter Brueghel the Elder, The Painter and The Buyer, c.1565, pen and ink on brown paper, presumed to be a self-portrait. Antwerp
Pierre Mignard, 1690, Louvre.
Francesco Solimena, c. 1715.
François Boucher, self-portrait in the studio, 1720
Joshua Reynolds, National Portrait Gallery, 1748. The artist as visionary. Much cut down, this originally had a vertical format.
George Desmarées and his daughter, 1750, Munich.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Self-Portrait with Palette and Brushes, 1769
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1771), in his painting clothes.
Goya, Self-portrait in the Studio, 1795
Gustave Courbet, Artist at His Easel, c. 1847–1848, charcoal on paper
Carl Ludwig Jessen, Self-portrait, 1857
James Whistler, Self Portrait, c. 1872, Detroit Institute of Arts
Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait as a Painter, December 1887 - February 1888
Henri Rousseau, 1890
Jacek Malczewski, Self-portrait with a Palette, 1892
Julian Fałat, Self-portrait with a Palette, 1896
Umberto Boccioni, Self-portrait, 1906
Enrique Simonet, Self-portrait with a Palette, 1910
Ilya Repin, Self-portrait at Work, 1915
Henri Matisse, Self-portrait, 1918, Matisse Museum (Le Cateau)
Sergio de Castro,Self-portrait with brushes, oil on canvas, 1961
Parmigianino, Self-portrait in a mirror c. 1524, is itself painted on a convex surface, like that of the mirrors of the period
Johannes Gumpp, 1646, shows how most self-portraits were painted
Ernst Oppler, The painter and Jo, 1928. Selfportrait and portrait
Michelangelo Buonarroti, c. 1535–1541, Sistine Chapel: The Last Judgment, Michelangelo as a limp skin hanging from the hand of St. Bartholomew.
Allegory of Prudence, Titian, his son and the cousin he had virtually adopted, as Past, Present and Future. National Gallery, London, late 1560s.
Sofonisba Anguissola, Self-portrait, 1610, aged 78, the last of her many self-portraits, though she was painted later by Van Dyck.
Jan de Bray (left) and his family pose as The Banquet of Anthony and Cleopatra. By the date of this second version of 1669, most of the models had died of the plague some years before.
Goya at the age of 74, Self-portrait with Doctor Arrieta, 1820, Minneapolis.
Van Dyck with sunflower, representing his patronage by Charles I, whose medal he holds up to the flower. Or is Van Dyck the sun the flower turns to? 1633 or later.
Johann Zoffany specialised in group portraits, often "conversation pieces" with gentle narrative content, and spent some years in India. c. 1786.
Gustave Courbet, 1854, Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet. The artist has travelled to the South of France (in the vanishing coach), to meet the collector Alfred Bruyas, for whom this was painted.
François Desportes, a specialist animal painter, Self-portrait as Hunter, 1699.
Maurice Quentin de La Tour, pastel, 1750–60.
Gustave Courbet, Self Portrait (The Desperate Man), c. 1843.
William Orpen, c. 1910
Pietro Perugino, c.1500
Raphael, c. 1517–1518, Uffizi Gallery
Hans Baldung, 1526
Titian seems to have painted no self-portraits until he was in old age, 1567
Probable self-portrait by El Greco, 1604
Peter Paul Rubens, 1623
Rubens with his (first) wife Isabella Brant, Munich, c.1609
Saint Luke as a Painter Before the Crucifixion]]
Salvator Rosa, 1640. "Of Silence and Speech, Silence is better" says the inscription
Diego Velázquez, Self-Portrait, 1643
Nicolas Poussin, Self-Portrait, 1650
Joshua Reynolds, presented to the Royal Academy, of which he was first President. Rather like Rembrandt, but more successful. 1773
Gilbert Stuart, Self-portrait, 1778
Francisco Goya, 1815 Oil on panel, Museo de la Real Academia de San Fernando, Madrid
Eugène Delacroix, 1837
Gustave Courbet, 1842
Karl Bryullov, 1848
Edgar Degas, Self-portrait, 1855
James McNeill Whistler, Portrait of Whistler with Hat, 1858, a self-portrait at the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Henri Fantin-Latour, Self-portrait, 1860
Ivan Kramskoi, Self-portrait, 1867
Ivan Aivazovsky, Self-portrait, 1874
Édouard Manet, Self-Portrait with Palette, 1879
Paul Cézanne, 1880–1881 National Gallery, London
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Self portrait, 1882–1883
Valentin Serov, 1887
Édouard Vuillard, Self-portrait, 1889
Vincent van Gogh, 1889 Musée d'Orsay Paris
Paul Gauguin, 1893
Thomas Eakins, Self-portrait, 1902
Henri Rousseau, 1903, Self-portrait of the Artist with a Lamp
Henri Matisse, Self-Portrait in a Striped T-shirt, 1906, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1910
Zinaida Serebriakova, Self-portrait as Pierrot, 1911
Egon Schiele, 1912
The first photographic portrait ever made was a self-portrait by Robert Cornelius, 1839.
Mathew Brady, self-portrait, circa 1875
Nadar, Revolving Self Portrait, c. 1865
Arthur Rimbaud, Self-portrait in Harar, Ethiopia, 1883
Edgar Degas, Self-portrait, 1895
Edward S. Curtis, self-portrait, 1898
Émile Zola, self-portrait, 1902
Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, Self-portrait on the Korolistskali River, 1912
Ernst Kirchner, self-portrait, 1919
Leonardo da Vinci, Self-portrait, c. 1512 to 1515.
Giuseppe Arcimboldo, self portrait, c. 1577
Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait, pen and brush and ink on paper, c. 1628-1629
Peter Paul Rubens, self portrait, c. 1634
Francisco de Goya, self portrait, print, 1795
John Constable self portrait, 1806
Caspar David Friedrich, self portrait, age thirty-six, 1810
Mikhail Vrubel, self portrait, c. 1885
Castro Alves, self portrait, 18--.
Ilka Gedő, Self-Portrait in the Budapest Ghetto, 1944, Hungarian Jewish Museum

Self-portrait facts for kids

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