自画像

Around 1628 Rubens was as much a diplomat as a painter, travelling to Madrid and soon London on missions between the Spanish crown and its enemies. He painted himself here not as a man at an easel but as a gentleman, in a wide black hat and dark coat, with no brushes and no sign of the trade anywhere in view. The picture was never meant for sale. It stayed in his workshop as a model, a face his assistants could copy and printmakers could turn into portraits of the famous master. The background is barely worked and the coat laid in with broad strokes, while the care goes to the eyes and the steady, measuring look he gives himself.