Autoportrait avec un ami

Raphael painted himself here at the back, one hand on his own chest, and set a friend in front of him who turns to point out toward us, as if the two of them have just noticed the viewer arrive. Who the friend is has never been settled. Because he grips a sword hilt he was long called a fencing master, but scholars have proposed pupils and patrons instead, among them the goldsmith Branconio, and no name has stuck. It is one of the few double portraits Raphael made, from his last Roman years not long before he died in 1520 at just 37. The gesture outward, breaking the frame to acknowledge whoever stands before the canvas, was a bold thing to do in a formal portrait, and it still makes the pair feel caught mid-conversation.