Self-portrait with a sheet of music

Angelica Kauffmann's Self-Portrait with a Sheet of Music from 1753 — painted when she was only twelve years old — is a remarkable document of her prodigious early talent. Kauffmann was a celebrated child prodigy who had been painting portraits since age eleven, accompanying her father Johann Joseph Kauffmann, a decorative painter, on his travels through Italy and Switzerland. The music sheet in her hands reflects her equally gifted musical career as a singer; she reportedly had to choose between painting and music at the age of about twelve, and this self-portrait captures that moment of dual identity. It is one of the earliest examples of her lifelong practice of self-portraiture.

The young Kauffmann depicts herself with a directness remarkable for her age, holding sheet music as a symbol of her musical identity alongside her emerging painterly one. The handling already shows the refined, smooth technique she would develop further under Italian instruction.