Self-portrait

This small oil painting on card pasted onto canvas shows Domenico Beccafumi, a Sienese painter of the late Renaissance, and belongs to the Uffizi's collection of artists' self-portraits in Florence. It is generally dated to around 1525-1530. Its material history is revealing: when it entered the gallery in 1682, it had been enlarged on all four sides, either to fit a frame or to pair it with another work, so the original format is no longer what we see. For a time its frame wrongly credited it to Passeri, and the attribution to Beccafumi was only restored in the second half of the twentieth century, after a period of little critical attention. Doubts remain about its nature. Because no other portraits of the painter survive for comparison, some scholars suggest it may be a preparatory sketch for a portrait of another man rather than a self-portrait. Even so, it is valuable as a direct glimpse of how an artist of the period chose to present himself, with an attentive gaze and sober execution.

Painter

Domenico Beccafumi

Date

1525

Medium

oil paint

Dimensions

26 × 32 cm

Museum

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Genre

self-portrait

Depicts

Domenico Beccafumi, man

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