Self-Portrait with Cigarette

In 1871 Rome became the capital of a united Italy, and Germany had just been declared an empire. Anselm Feuerbach, a German who had lived in the city since 1856, painted himself there that year and said so along the top of the canvas: A. Feuerbach s. ips. R 71, Latin shorthand for “himself”, then Rome, ’71. He shows his face in strict profile, turned away, dark hair swept back and a moustache curled at the tips. A loose brown jacket, a white shirt, a small black bow at the throat. The Belvedere calls him an elegant dandy here, and notes that he struck the same nonchalant pose in many other self-portraits. Low in the picture, held loosely between his fingers, is a thin cigarette, a habit that caught on across Europe only after the Crimean War of the 1850s.