.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Jan Mankes executed relatively many self-portraits during his life. He assigned great importance to self-portraits and portraits in general, which is evident from a fragment of a letter from 1911: 'Een portret kan groot zijn, grooter dan de heerlijkste buitendag, het portret toch kan het leven, de ziel den afgebeelde weergeven, de ziel die die schoonheid kan zien naar de mate zijner eigen grootheid'. (Bruyel, op.cit. p. 57).
Mankes considered the painting of a self-portrait as a way to look at himself in a critical manner and to sound his own inner self. In these portraits he often accentuated physical characteristics, like for instance the lines of his jaw, his big ears. Hans Holbein was Mankes most important inspiration for the way he stylised his portraits.
In the years of 1913-1914, Mankes tried to achieve a sober style combined with a certain monumentality. The present portrait is an extraordinary example of this sheer soberness. In 1913, the same year as this portrait, he made a woodcut with a similar position, with the head turned to the left.
In his self-portrait Mankes presents himself as a venerable person. His critics have often entangled the way Mankes depicted himself with his illness tuberculosis and created a romantic view of an ascetic artist. A.M. Hammacher spoke of: 'Het bleek, lijdend jongensgezicht'. (Utrechts dagblad, 11 September 1923), and others authors stressed his '.... roeping, verzaking en wereldse aangelegenheden, een boven de wereld uitgaande rust en een in rust en roeping grote geest'. (Bruyel, op.cit. p. 126). After Annie Mankes and Roland Holst published their monography on Mankes in 1923, this exaggerated point of view lost ground.
This subtle and delicate portrait of the artist has never been sold by his wife or family after Mankes died and has always been in possession of in the family. This is one of the last self-portraits still in private hands.
Mankes considered the painting of a self-portrait as a way to look at himself in a critical manner and to sound his own inner self. In these portraits he often accentuated physical characteristics, like for instance the lines of his jaw, his big ears. Hans Holbein was Mankes most important inspiration for the way he stylised his portraits.
In the years of 1913-1914, Mankes tried to achieve a sober style combined with a certain monumentality. The present portrait is an extraordinary example of this sheer soberness. In 1913, the same year as this portrait, he made a woodcut with a similar position, with the head turned to the left.
In his self-portrait Mankes presents himself as a venerable person. His critics have often entangled the way Mankes depicted himself with his illness tuberculosis and created a romantic view of an ascetic artist. A.M. Hammacher spoke of: 'Het bleek, lijdend jongensgezicht'. (Utrechts dagblad, 11 September 1923), and others authors stressed his '.... roeping, verzaking en wereldse aangelegenheden, een boven de wereld uitgaande rust en een in rust en roeping grote geest'. (Bruyel, op.cit. p. 126). After Annie Mankes and Roland Holst published their monography on Mankes in 1923, this exaggerated point of view lost ground.
This subtle and delicate portrait of the artist has never been sold by his wife or family after Mankes died and has always been in possession of in the family. This is one of the last self-portraits still in private hands.