Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
Unknown artist, Britain
SelfPortrait an Unknown Artist at Age Twentytwo
Purchased 1879
adults
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artist, painter
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<p>The identity of the man in this painting is unknown. An inscription says that it is a self-portrait, created when the artist was twenty-two years old. Its style suggests that it was painted around 1740.  The artist is shown in sober clothing. He wears a type of cap often worn by artists in their studios. It also associates this painter with Rembrandt, who famously painted himself in such working clothes. Rembrandt was an important role-model for artists in eighteenth-century Britain, admired for his technical brilliance and profundity.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
3 November 2003 – 19 January 2004
2004-01-19
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-11-03
Portraits of Artists
Collection based display
22 March 2013 – 1 September 2013
2013-09-01
22 March 2013 – 1 September 2013
2013-09-01
2013-03-22
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2013-03-22
Image of the British School
Collection based display
Self-Portrait of an Unknown Artist at the Age of Twenty-two
support: 769 × 639 mm
frame: 910 × 771 × 85 mm
Purchased 1879
<p>The identity of the man in this <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a>  is <span class="text22">unknown. An inscription says that it is a self-<a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a>, created when the  artist was twenty-two years old. Its style suggests that it was painted around 1740.
<br/> 
The artist is shown in sober clothing. He wears a type of cap often worn by artists in their studios. It also associates this painter with Rembrandt, who famously painted himself in such  working clothes. Rembrandt was  an important role-model for artists in eighteenth-century Britain, admired for his technical brilliance and profundity.

</span></p>
Display caption
2004-09-08T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/unknown-artist-britain-self-portrait-of-an-unknown-artist-at-the-age-of-twenty-two-n01076" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01076</span></a> <b>Self-Portrait of an Unknown Artist at the Age of Twenty-two</b> ? <i>c.</i> 1740</p>
<p></p>
<p>Oil on canvas 749×619 (29 1/2×24 3/8), relined on canvas 769×639 (30 1/16×25 1/8), subject within feigned oval</p>
<p>Inscribed ‘Se ipse Pinxit. Aetat. 22’ b.l.</p>
<p>Purchased by the National Gallery 1879; transferred to the Tate Gallery 1919</p>
<p>PROVENANCE ...; Samuel Boddington; Lady Webster, by whose executors sold Christic's 9 June 1866 (302 as ‘Hogarth. Portrait of a gentleman, in a black dress and cap’) bt James Hughes Anderdon, by whose executors sold Christie's 30 May 1879 (87 as ‘Aikman. Portrait of a boy’) bt Barton for the National Gallery, and catalogued there as ‘Hamlet Winstanley. Portrait of the Artist (?)’
<br/>EXHIBITED <i>Summer Exhibition of Paintings and Art</i>, Longford Hall Art Gallery and Museum 1934 (61)
<br/>LITERATURE <i>Catalogue of the British and Foreign Pictures</i>, National Gallery, 1912, p.765, no.1076; Geoffrey Grigson, ‘George Stubbs, 1724–1806’, <i>The Harp of Aeolus</i>, 1947, p.14 n. 1
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<br/>The inscription ‘Se ipse Pinxit. Aetat. 22’ lower left was revealed during restoration in 1981. One might reasonably have expected that the artist would have added a signature or at least a date, perhaps lower right, but there is no other inscription.
<br/>
<br/>The <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a> has been variously attributed in the past to Hogarth, Aikman (this attribution, as a portrait of Gay, is inscribed in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/g/graphite" title="Glossary definition for 'Graphite'"><span>pencil</span></a> on the back of the relined <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a>, presumably by J.H. Anderdon) and Winstanley. The National Gallery's attribution to Winstanley was presumably based on a fancied resemblance to Winstanley's self-portrait at an easel, <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Engraving'"><span>engraved</span></a> by John Faber Jnr in 1731; but no.6 does not seem to be painted in Winstanley's style, has no very close resemblance to Winstanley's features in Faber's engraving and does not include the two moles on the sitter's face which are a prominent feature of the ivory portrait bust of Winstanley signed ‘GVDR’ and dated 1740 (in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, repr. <i>Burlington Magazine</i>, CXXIII, 1981, frontispiece and fig.103, noted on p.63)
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<br/>It has also been noticed that no.6 bears some likeness in pose and features to the self-portrait (at an older age) by Arthur Pond, <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/etching" title="Glossary definition for 'Etching'"><span>etching</span></a> and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drypoint" title="Glossary definition for 'Drypoint'"><span>drypoint</span></a>, dated 1739 (repr. Louise Lippincott, <i>Selling Art in Georgian London: The Rise of Arthur Pond</i>, 1983, frontispiece); but no.6 is a work of considerable quality and Miss Lippincott considers (in correspondence and on visits to the Tate Gallery) that it is ‘much too good a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> to have been executed by Arthur Pond while in his twenties’. Possibly the unknown artist knew of Pond's self-portrait and modelled his own pose on it; he may also have been influenced by portraits and self-portraits by Jonathan Richardson Snr and Jnr.</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Elizabeth Einberg and Judy Egerton, <i>The Age of Hogarth: British Painters Born 1675-1709</i>, Tate Gallery Collections, II, London 1988
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults age of sitter artist, painter arts and entertainment inscriptions man people portraits self-portraits symbols and personifications work and occupations