Self-portrait

Eglon van der Neer signed and dated this self-portrait in 1696, near the end of a long career spent mostly far from Italy. He was a Dutch painter admired for elegant figures in gleaming satin, and by this date he had left the Netherlands to serve the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm as court painter in Dusseldorf. He shows himself at about 60, well dressed and self-possessed, turning to meet the viewer's eye. The prized skill is all in the handling, the sheen of the cloth and the soft modelling of the face, the exact refinement that wealthy collectors across northern Europe paid him for. He died in Dusseldorf seven years later, in 1703.