Autoportrait

In 1623 the future Charles I, then Prince of Wales, asked Rubens for a portrait of the artist himself. That was an unusual request. Painters were still widely treated as craftsmen, and Rubens rarely painted his own face on demand. He answered with this: a poised, dignified man in a broad black hat, meeting you at eye level, dressed as a gentleman rather than a worker at an easel, with no brushes or palette in sight. By this point he was as much a diplomat as a painter, moving between the courts of Europe on delicate errands, and a self-portrait sent to a prince was itself a piece of that diplomacy. It has stayed in the British royal collection from the moment it reached London that year.