Self-Portrait

Frédéric Bazille · 1865–66

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

108.9 × 71.1 cm (42 7/8 × 28 3/8 in.); Framed: 136.3 × 100.4 × 10.8 cm (53 5/8 × 39 1/2 × 4 1/4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Romanticism

Bazille painted this self-portrait at around twenty-four, and it carries the quiet confidence of a young artist who already knew exactly what he was doing. A central figure in the early Impressionist circle, Bazille shared studios with Monet and Renoir and played an outsized role in shaping the movement's direction — yet his career was cut short when he was killed in the Franco-Prussian War at just twenty-eight. This self-portrait reflects his characteristic approach: honest observation, controlled brushwork, and a subdued palette that owes something to Courbet's realism while gesturing toward the lighter touch his friends were developing. There is nothing showy about it — just a man looking steadily back at the viewer with an almost clinical self-awareness. Bazille is among the few Impressionist painters whose entire body of work fits within a single decade, making each surviving canvas particularly significant to the movement's history. Our hand-painted oil reproduction is worked on canvas using the same layering and blending techniques as the original, preserving the muted tones, the subtle modelling of the face, and the unaffected directness that makes this one of the more quietly compelling self-portraits of the era.