Walter Rathenau

When Munch painted this in 1907, Walther Rathenau was one of the most powerful men in Germany. He ran the electrical giant AEG, wrote widely read books on economics and philosophy, and moved at the top of Wilhelmine society as a wealthy, cultivated, German-Jewish industrialist. 15 years on, that same man would be foreign minister of the young Weimar Republic, and in June 1922 he was shot dead in his open car in Berlin by right-wing nationalists who hated both his politics and his Jewish background. None of that shadow is here yet. Munch gives him the whole tall canvas, full length and well over life size, a cigar in one hand, standing with an ease that borders on arrogance. Rathenau saw clearly what the painter had made of him. He is said to have remarked that this is what comes of having your portrait done by a great artist, you end up looking more like yourself than you really are.