Self-portrait
Bartholomäus Spranger (1546–1611)
c. 1586
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Although Spranger was born in Antwerp, he had reached Italy before he was twenty and was to remain there for a decade, working in Milan, Parma, Rome and Caprarola. By 1575 he was working at the court of Emperor Maximilian II in Vienna, and probably only made his definitive move to the Prague court of Maximilian’s successor Rudolf II in 1580, being named ‘Hofmaler’ (Court Painter) the following year. Spranger’s major activity was as a painter of highly original religious and mythological works, which at the same time reveal how profoundly he absorbed the influence of the school of Parma, above all of its two principal representatives, Correggio (c.1489–1534) and Parmigianino (1503–1540).
For all Spranger’s prolific activity in sacred and profane art alike, the present work is almost the only portrait he ever executed and thus also remarkable for its self-assurance. Another version of it, coincidentally in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, now measures 62.5 x 45 cm, and represents a kind of close-up of the composition here; originally, however, it most probably shared the more expansive format. It retains traces of an inscription referring to the artist having painted himself, but the penetrating, uneasy gaze indicates that this simply must be a self-portrait, though Spranger – who together with his two brothers was ennobled in 1588 – did not see fit to include any of the attributes customarily associated with his profession.
- Material/technique
- oil on canvas
- Measurements
- 60 × 44 cm
- Acquisition
- historical family property
- Currently exhibited
- Garden Palace, permanent presentation
- Artists/makers/authors
- Bartholomäus Spranger
- Inventory number
- GE 946
- Provenance
- Historical family property, first mentioned in A. Kronfeld, Führer durch die Liechtenstein'sche Gemäldegalerie in Wien, Vienna 1931
- Iconography
- Self-portrait
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