Self-Portrait

In the early 1890s Pierre Millet, the painter's brother, travelled to New York and Boston to find buyers for a group of Jean-François's works among the American collectors who already owned his pictures. This canvas had come down to Pierre by inheritance, and in 1893 the Museum of Fine Arts bought it from him for 3,000 dollars, raised by contributions from several donors. Millet painted it around 1840 or 1841, when he was about 26, back from his years of study in Paris and trying to make a living as a portrait painter in Cherbourg. He looks straight out at us, his long brown hair parted at the side, a short beard along his jaw, and a black coat buttoned high to the throat. Strong light falls on the face and the rest sinks into dark brown shadow. The museum knows of only two painted self-portraits by Millet, and this is one of them.