Self-Portrait
Medium
Black chalk, with charcoal and stumping, on blue laid paper, laid down on cream laid paper, perimeter mounted to gray board
Dimensions
Primary support: 36.5 × 31.2 cm (14 3/8 × 12 5/16 in.); Secondary support: 45.5 × 43 cm (17 15/16 × 16 15/16 in.); Tertiary support: 50.3 × 43 cm (19 13/16 × 16 15/16 in.)
Classification
chalk
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
223042
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Among Fantin-Latour’s portraits, the most penetrating are those he made of himself. This is an early attempt, created when he was just 21 years old, and may reflect the influence of Edgar Degas, whom he had met just two years previously. As with many young artists, the most available model could be found in the mirror, fostering many such brooding images bursting with potential.
About the Artist
Henri Fantin-Latour · 1836–1904
Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-Latour was born on January 14, 1836, in Grenoble, France, to portrait painter Théodore Fantin-Latour, who gave him his earliest drawing lessons. The family relocated to Paris in 1841, where in 1850, at age 14, he enrolled in the École de Dessin, studying under Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, whose innovative memory-based method of drawing from observation profoundly ...