Self-portrait

In 1606 Adam Elsheimer, a German painter working in Rome, was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca, the city's academy of artists, and by custom he left them a self-portrait. That is why this picture is so strange within his work. Elsheimer painted almost everything in miniature, tiny scenes on small copper plates, prized for their glowing night skies and firelight. This is his only known portrait and his only surviving work on canvas, a rare life-size face from a man of small pictures. He died just four years later, aged 32 and deep in debt.