Self-Portrait with Hat and Veil

During a stay in Paris in 1921 and 1922, Charley Toorop came to know the Fayum portraits, faces painted on wooden panels in Roman Egypt and bound into the wrappings of mummies over the faces of the dead. They kept working on her for years, and the Stedelijk sees their influence in this self-portrait of 1938. She painted herself more than 25 times in the course of her career. Here she is a stylish, self-assured woman in a hat and veil, cropped tight and seen head-on in close-up, looking straight at whoever stands in front of her. The canvas is small, about 40 centimetres high.