Autoportrait

The Uffizi in Florence keeps a famous gallery of artists' self-portraits, and getting into it was an honour painters angled for. The museum first asked Ingres for one in 1839. He let the request sit. Only in 1855, when it was renewed, did he agree, and he finished this head in March 1858, at 78. He shows himself plainly, dark coat, white collar, the face of a man near the end of a long and combative career spent defending drawing and the classical line against the Romantics. He would live nine more years. It joined the Uffizi's wall of painters looking back at the visitor, from Raphael onward.