LARGILLIÈRE, Nicolas de
(b. 1656, Paris, d. 1746, Paris)

Self-Portrait

1707
Oil on canvas, 93 x 73 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Largillière painted many portraits of himself. A number of these works were replicated, some more than once. In the present portrait, the fifty-year-old artist is seated in his studio. On the stone shelf behind him is a still-life composed of articles commonly found in an artist's studio: a rectangular wooden palette, paint-stained brushes, and an array of plaster, terracotta, or marble sculptures, all but one of which are small in scale. The most prominent is the reduction of the full-length statue of a young male nude commonly called the Antinous (Vatican Museums, Vatican). Largillière had already used the Antinous as a prop in his portraits of Charles Le Brun and Nicolas Coustou.




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