Self-portrait

Rebecca Dulcibella Orpen's Self-portrait (1885) places the Irish-born painter in the tradition of women artists asserting their professional identity through self-portraiture. Orpen was a pupil of Edward Burne-Jones and worked within the British Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts tradition; her self-portrait documents a woman painter of genuine ability working within the dominant aesthetic movement of British art. As a self-portrait, it constitutes both professional statement and personal document — the painter facing herself with the honesty that self-portraiture demands.

Orpen renders herself with the Pre-Raphaelite precision she absorbed from Burne-Jones: careful observation of her own features, the specific quality of light on her face and hair, the accurate documentation of her dress and appearance. Her palette reflects the Pre-Raphaelite tradition — warm flesh tones, careful description of fabric and accessories — combined with the more personal freedom available to a painter working from and for herself rather than from a commission. The handling shows genuine technical competence within the tradition in which she was trained.