Self-portrait

The Uffizi keeps one of the oldest collections of artists' self-portraits anywhere, begun in the 1660s by Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici, who wrote to painters across Europe asking each for his own likeness. Jacob Ferdinand Voet belonged in it. A Flemish painter who worked in Rome, he was the most fashionable portraitist in the city in the 1670s, sought out for his flattering likenesses of Roman noblewomen, a whole gallery of society beauties. Around 1673 he turned that practiced eye on himself, meeting you directly in the dark, elegant dress he painted so well. A few years later his portraits of women in low-cut gowns were judged too daring, and he was ordered to leave Rome.