Self-Portrait
1865–66
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
108.9 × 71.1 cm (42 7/8 × 28 3/8 in.); Framed: 136.3 × 100.4 × 10.8 cm (53 5/8 × 39 1/2 × 4 1/4 in.)
Classification
oil on canvas
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
110661
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Frédéric Bazille was in his mid-20s when he executed this startlingly direct self-portrait. Depicted against a dark background with only his palette and brushes to indicate his profession, he looks at the viewer as if caught unawares. The unseen easel and canvas must be located immediately in front of the artist and to our left. During his brief career, which ended when he was killed in the line of duty during the Franco-Prussian War, Frédéric Bazille produced about 70 paintings, 4 of them self...
About the Artist
Frédéric Bazille · 1841–1870
**Frédéric Bazille (1841–1870)** was a French Impressionist painter whose brief career helped shape the movement’s early development. Born Jean Frédéric Bazille on December 6, 1841, in Montpellier into a wealthy Protestant family of wine merchants, he grew up on the family estate of Le Domaine de Méric near Castelnau-le-Lez. Initially drawn to painting after encountering works by Eugène Delacroix,...