Carpeaux en veston rouge peignant dans son atelier

This self-portrait of Carpeaux in a red waistcoat, painting in his studio, was made in 1865 — the year he received the commission for 'La Danse' on the Paris Opéra façade, his most controversial and celebrated sculptural work. The self-portrait in the atelier was a genre with deep roots in European painting, from Velázquez's 'Las Meninas' to Courbet's 'The Painter's Studio.' Carpeaux's choice to paint himself at work asserts his identity as a creative artist rather than a craftsman. The red waistcoat was a deliberate choice — a vivid, unconventional garment signaling artistic bohemianism and Romantic freedom from bourgeois convention. The Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris holds this painting and several others by Carpeaux, forming a significant collection. This self-portrait stands as a rare glimpse of Carpeaux as painter rather than sculptor, in the year his most famous work was commissioned.

Oil paint on canvas with the energetic, direct brushwork that characterizes Carpeaux's best paintings. The self-portrait format allowed spontaneous mirror-based observation, and the atelier setting provided rich material — the controlled disorder of a working studio.