William Hogarth

This 1757 self-portrait by William Hogarth is a late work by the artist, painted when he was in his sixties and had long established his reputation as Britain's most original painter. Hogarth's self-portraits are characteristically honest, reflecting the same unflinching observation he brought to his satirical subjects. William Hogarth, the most original British painter of the eighteenth century, combined the traditions of Flemish and Dutch genre painting with a specifically English tradition of social observation and moral satire to create a body of work unlike anything previously produced in British art. His portraits — frank, specific, unflattering in their psychological directness — belong to a tradition of honest observation that owed more to Rembrandt than to the idealized English portrait convention of his time. His invention of the narrative painting series — paintings designed to be read together, telling a moral story across multiple images — was a contribution to European art that has no precedent and established the tradition of British narrative painting that would culminate in Victorian genre art.

The late self-portrait shows Hogarth's mature, confident brushwork and direct characterization, presenting himself with the same candor and psychological depth he brought to all his portrait subjects.