Self-portrait

The Medici had begun gathering artists' self-portraits into a single collection at Florence, a gallery of painters looking out at you across time, and van Mieris's face entered it from far to the north. He painted this in 1677, a Leiden master turning to show his own features with the same polished care he gave his patrons. A self-portrait was also a calling card, proof of what the hand could do sent to a court that would never see him at work. The collection he joined is still at the Uffizi today, one of the largest of its kind, and his likeness hangs among hundreds of others.