Self-portrait

Hippolyte Flandrin painted this in 1853, at the height of a career spent mostly high on scaffolding. A favourite pupil of the great French painter Ingres, and his friend for life, Flandrin made his living covering church walls in Paris with solemn religious murals. This is the face behind that work. The painting's real story, though, came later. Early in 1865, a year after Flandrin died, the Uffizi wrote to ask for one of his self-portraits, wanting him in its long gallery of artists who had painted themselves. His widow sent this one, and said she was glad to see his likeness in Florence, among the old masters he had loved all his life. That is why a French muralist looks out at you today from a collection first gathered by the Medici.