Self-Portrait

In 1731 Martin van Meytens stopped travelling. He had set out from home at about 17 and spent almost two decades moving between countries before he settled in Vienna, where his portraits would soon be sought after at the imperial court and among the aristocracy. This self-portrait comes from those first Viennese years, somewhere between 1731 and 1735, and it works like a calling card. He turns toward us in a brown fur-collared robe, a gold chain lying over his open shirt. In one hand he holds up a tiny oval portrait of a gentleman in a powdered wig, set in a gilt frame, the kind of small likeness he had started out painting. His other hand rests on the edge of a canvas. The Belvedere bought the picture from a private collection in Vienna in 2017.