This picture has been wrongly identified as a self-portrait, even though the artist’s distinctive features are well known through the survival of the celebrated drawing in the Albertina, Vienna.  The precise meaning of the picture is elusive, as it is a combination of an intimate portrait together with the symbolic scroll which might suggest scholarship or philosophy.  In spite of this, the very directness of the approach gives the feeling that the sitter came from the artist’s immediate personal circle, as it has all the powerful sense of observation seen in the celebrated chalk drawings.

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