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Follow the quick, curling lines of the hair and moustache, then see how the shoulder fades into bare paper.
Van Dyck etched his own head turning to look back over his shoulder and left the rest of the plate almost bare. The plate belongs to the Iconography, his series of about 80 portraits of artists and other notable people; he etched fifteen of them himself, and professional engravers later finished the plates with more detail. Sheets like this one show his quick, free handling of the etching needle.
Etching in black on ivory laid paper · Image/plate: 24.6 × 15.7 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Baroque
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Self-Portrait
- Artist
- Anthony van Dyck Flemish, 1599-1641
- Date
- 1630/33
- Medium
- Etching in black on ivory laid paper
- Dimensions
- Image/plate: 24.6 × 15.7 cm (9 11/16 × 6 3/16 in.); Sheet: 25.7 × 16.9 cm (10 1/8 × 6 11/16 in.)
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.