Self-Portrait
1700s
Meet Anton Raphael Mengs, the man who helped drag European art out of the frilly, pastel-filled Rococo era and into the serious business of Neoclassicism. Here, he paints himself not as a flamboyant artist, but as a thoughtful intellectual, draped in a heavy grey cloak with a stark white collar that screams 'I mean business.' His intense, slightly weary gaze suggests the pressure of being the most famous painter of his time—a man so highly regarded he was literally nicknamed the 'German Raphael.' While modern critics might find his style a bit stiff, in the 1700s, he was the ultimate art celebrity, painting popes and kings across Europe.
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