Self-portrait

She painted this herself in 1772, and she presents herself by rank rather than by trade. Her hair is built high and set with a strand of diamonds, her gown cut low in the court fashion of the day, the image of an electress of Saxony. That title was only one of the things she was, and she did a great deal beyond painting, yet here she hands the Uffizi the portrait of a sovereign. The gallery was then gathering self-portraits from the working painters of Europe, and this one arrived from a princess who had made her own. Set among the faces of career artists, the strand of diamonds marks hers out at a glance.