Self Portrait

Details

Baron Jean-Baptiste Regnault (Paris 1754-1829)
Self Portrait
oil on paper (?), laid down on canvas
22 x 18¼ in. (55.8 x 46.3 cm.)

Provenance

with Heim Gallery, London, by 1972.
Anonymous sale; Ader, Picard & Tajan, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 14 March 1979, lot 89.
with Galerie Jacques Fischer-Chantal Kiener, Paris, by June 1979, where acquired by the present owner ($17,000).

Literature

C. Sells, Jean Baptiste Regnault: Biography and catalogue raisonné , no. 3, fig. 33, unpublished dissertation, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 1981, pp. 269-280.

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Lot Essay

Sells dates this self-portrait to 1793-4, noting that Regnault's unusual decision to paint himself with a beard, which makes this work unique amongst Regnault's imaginative autodepictions, relates to his having been excluded from the Revolutionary Societé Republicaine des Arts, with other artists of suspect political loyalties, who were described by Jacques-Louis David, 'ceux-ci ont du talent, mais leur patriotisme est sans couleur'. Regnault grew a beard in response to this public humiliation.

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