Self-portrait

Acquired by the 7th Duke of Berwick and 14th Duke of Alba, Don Carlos Miguel Fitz-James Stuart, in Florence in August 1817.

When cataloguing this painting (it appears under number 16), Mr. Sánchez Cantón says: “It is different and much earlier than the one painted in Florence for the Uffizi in 1774. It seems that it will have to be dated around 1760.” “Mengs had the desire to perpetuate his figure -least of all Van Dyck-, Voss dedicates some space to the study of his self-portraits. The first, the cake, dates back to 1744 and is kept in Dresden. They will follow the one that gives us the copy of the Duke of the Infantado, which Voss does not know -No. 9-, and the one that is catalogued here, for the German critic, the most cumbersome and most important. Then comes the very beautiful, unfinished one from the collection of the Marquise de la Cenia, in Mallorca; the one that appears in the Adoration, the Prado, the one in Munich (1773), the one in Florence (1774) and the half-length one in the Hermitage (around 1775), according to Voss the most intense and strong.”