Self-portrait

By 1697 the grandest mirror a European painter could hope to be seen in hung in Florence: the Grand Dukes of Tuscany had spent decades gathering artists' own likenesses into a single gallery at the Uffizi, and to be asked for yours meant hanging beside Rubens and Rembrandt. This is the portrait Van der Werff sent south. He turns toward us in a heavy red cloak over a gold satin sleeve, a palette and brushes in one hand. In the other he holds up a small framed painting, and that picture within the picture is his own family, his wife Margaretha van Rees and their young daughter. A painter who could have shown us his tools or his patrons chose instead to present himself as a gentleman holding a portrait of the people at home. The child in the frame is Maria, their only daughter.