The self-portrait, an autobiography in paint, began in fifteenth-century Florence when artists first asserted their identity by placing their own image, as observer or participant, into religious and historical narratives. As the artist gained social status, his image increased in importance. Botticelli’s handsome, even arrogant, appearance on the extreme right in The Adoration of the Magi (1475) anticipated by several centuries the imposing self-portraits of two formally dressed arch-rivals, the Byronically dashing Delacroix (1839) and the defiantly severe Ingres (1858).

The self-portrait is at once a portrayal of character, projection of personality and definition of selfhood, a statement of individuality and self-awareness, an affirmation that the artist is worthy of fame and deserving of remembrance. It includes moral content, psychological revelations and symbolic attributes, which suggest both intellect and technical skill. Omar Calabrese points out that Lucas Cranach portrayed himself as a severed head in four different versions of the story of Judith and Holofernes—a grotesque self-image served up on a platter during a triumphant banquet—and concludes that it was either a sarcastic anti-tribute or a form of confession and expression of penitence.

In Dürer’s rigidly hieratic Self-Portrait (1500) the artist portrays himself as an imposing Christ figure.

Portrait painters have always struggled with the conflict between the real and the ideal. Sir Joshua Reynolds frankly painted his slightly deformed upper lip and alluded to his deafness by cupping his ear. But when he painted Samuel Johnson holding a book close to his eyes, his great