Self-Portrait by Largillierre, Nicolas de
Nicolas de Largillierre painted this self-portrait in 1707, at the height of his fame in Paris. He was the portraitist everyone wanted, aristocrats, royals, their children, and museums hold hundreds of his commissioned works. His own face, by his own hand, lives at the Louvre.
Look at his eyes. The right one carries a tiny white point of reflected light, a studio window reduced to a single dab of paint. Follow the line of his gaze and you find a half-hidden figure standing in the shadowed background behind him. Largillierre painted himself looking at you, but the room is not empty. He is watching, and he knows he is being watched back.
He was 31 or 32 when he made this, a craftsman who understood that a self-portrait was both a calling card and a kind of ghost. Every one of his subjects has died. He died in 1746. But the gaze is still working. You walk into the gallery and he is already looking at you, still sizing you up as a potential sitter.
Is there another painting where the artist feels this present in the room with you?
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He looks at you like he is still working. 1707. Nicolas de Largillierre is the most sought-after portraitist in Paris. He paints aristocrats. He paints royalty. He paints their children. But here, he turns the canvas on himself. Hold a moment on his right eye. He gave himself a catch-light that looks strangely like a window. And in that window, one shadowy figure stands in the background. He painted himself seeing you, and someone else is in the room.