Artist's Self-portrait with Wife and Son Alfons

This triple portrait from 1830 — showing Overbeck alongside his wife Luisa Brentano and their son Alfons — is one of the most intimate documents of the artist's Roman life. Overbeck had married Luisa in 1815, and she appears in several of his works as a model for Madonna figures, the domestic and the sacred intertwined in his deeply devotional household. The inclusion of son Alfons anchors the portrait in the tradition of Holy Family imagery that Overbeck himself painted repeatedly, suggesting a quiet conflation of private affection and religious type. Self-portraits by Nazarene artists are relatively rare — the movement's ideology discouraged artistic self-promotion — making this family group an unusually candid statement of personal identity. The Museum Behnhaus Drägerhaus in Lübeck, Overbeck's birthplace, holds this work as a treasured emblem of the city's most famous artistic son.

Three-figure portraiture demanded careful compositional balancing; Overbeck likely used a triangular or vertical axis to unify the group. Paint handling in portrait contexts is marginally looser than in his devotional works, with slightly more attention to individual physiognomy and textile texture.