Self-Portrait with Beret and Spectacles

This 1896 self-portrait at an unknown location shows Pissarro wearing a beret and spectacles, directly confronting the viewer in a mode of unpretentious self-presentation. Spectacles were a constant necessity after the eye disease he developed in the 1880s forced him to paint from windows rather than outdoors; including them in a self-portrait was an honest acknowledgment of his physical condition. At sixty-six, Pissarro was an elder statesman of Impressionism — the only painter to exhibit in all eight Impressionist exhibitions — and his self-portraits from this period carry the gravity of long professional experience. The beret identifies him as a working painter rather than a bourgeois sitter.

The self-portrait is modeled with careful tonal observation in warm ochre and cool grey, with the spectacles providing a graphic focal point above the beard. Pissarro's handling of his own face is exploratory and honest, without vanity. The background is kept minimal to focus attention on the sitter's characterful expression.