Sir Joshua Reynolds

In the late 1740s Joshua Reynolds was in his mid-twenties, had left the London studio of his teacher Thomas Hudson, and was about to go to Italy. He sailed in May 1749, and this self-portrait belongs to the couple of years just before. He shields his eyes with his hand, so the light cuts across his face and leaves the eyes in shadow, a pose the National Portrait Gallery links to his interest in Rembrandt. It is the only undisputed self-portrait in which he shows himself at work, holding palette and maulstick, and the lower left corner, with the easel and his hand, was never finished. The canvas was once taller. Engravings show that between 1808 and about 1823 roughly 20 centimetres were cut from the top and eight from the bottom. The gallery, founded only two years earlier, bought it at a Christie's sale in 1858.