3-098-023 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Self-Portrait, c1898. Spanish painter José Villegas Cordero (1844-1921) was director of the Museo del Prado between 1901 and 1918. He was extremely prolific as an artist, producing history and genre painting, whether Venetian, neo-Arabic or bullfighting. He also created portraits which were almost always intimate in nature. This self-portrait was painted when the artist was in his fifties. He concentrates on the face to achieve a synthetic, almost iconic representation of the artist: work clothes, beret, palette, brushes and canvases. He appears commandingly, behind the canvas, looking attentively at the sitter, who is identified with the viewer.