Self-portrait

The Uffizi keeps a collection of artists' self-portraits begun in the 17th century by a Medici cardinal, Leopoldo, and to be asked into it is a quiet honour handed down for centuries. In 1907 the gallery asked John Singer Sargent, then the most sought-after portraitist in the English-speaking world, and he sent this. It is deliberately plain, a dark coat, a plain ground, a direct and slightly weary look, none of the flash he gave his wealthy sitters. The date matters. Around this time Sargent was closing his London portrait studio, tired of turning out society likenesses on demand, and steering himself toward landscapes, watercolours, and mural work instead. So the painter who had defined grand portraiture chose, for the gallery that would keep his face forever, to show himself with almost none of it. This was the last self-portrait he made.