Autoportrait

In 1783 Goya was 37 and climbing fast. That year he painted the powerful Count of Floridablanca, the king's chief minister, and worked on a large altarpiece for the church of San Francisco el Grande in Madrid, where he quietly slipped his own face in among the crowd. This small self-portrait belongs to that push. He shows himself at the easel, brush in hand, turning from the canvas to hold your eye, dressed plainly, watchful, ambitious. The intimate later Goya, the one of deafness and nightmares, is still years off. The picture's own journey came later. It passed through the family of the painter Federico de Madrazo before a French count left it to the museum in Agen in 1901.