Self-portrait 'Venetian Senator'

Painting height: 154.9 cm
Painting width: 74.9 cm
Frame height: 179 cm
Frame width: 100.5 cm
Frame depth: 9.5 cm

Painted when the artist was 36, this is the largest self-portrait of Watts’s career. Dressed in a Venetian style red robe, the artist adopts a commanding pose, looking directly out at the viewer. Painted almost life size and with a low viewpoint, the viewer is forced to look up at the artist. Throughout his career, Watts used self-portraiture to experiment with colour, technique and artistic identity. At this crucial point in his career, the Victorian artist presents himself as a Renaissance man, evoking the art historical traditions that he greatly admired.

The largest self-portrait of Watts’s career. At 36, this portrait was painted almost 20 years after he first painted self-portrait. Standing in a full-frontal position, with his left knee slightly bent, in this portrait Watts is dressed in a long length red robe with long, voluminous sleeves. The white protruding shirt collar frames his newly grown beard, and short hair. With light radiating from the top right corner, his face is half cast in shadow as he gazes directly out at the viewer. In terms of colour the painting is simple with three main blocks: the red robe, the green background and the stone dado behind him. Painted almost life size and with a low viewpoint, the viewer must literally look up at the artist in this portrait as he commands the space. 

As with many of his self-portraits, Watts did not exhibit this portrait during his lifetime. From archival photographs, we know that it was hanging in his studio at Limnerslease the year he died and prior to that it was positioned on the staircase at Little Holland House, greeting sitters and guests as they entered his studio space.

Watts painted himself frequently throughout his career. ‘I paint myself constantly, that is to say whenever I want to make an experiment in method or colour, and I am not in the humour to make a design’ [1]. During the 1850s Watts experimented with the Italian Renaissance technique of fresco and was undertaking work for the Lincoln’s Inn mural commission. This self-portrait, in its restrained approach to paint application and ambitious scale, evokes the technique and can be compared with other works created at this time, including Lady Sophia Dalrymple (COMWG.200, 1850-53).

In addition to viewing his self-portraits as vehicles for experimentation with colour and technique, we can also detect levels of performance in these works as they became ways for him to explore his artistic identity throughout his lengthy career. After spending four years in Italy living at Casa Feroni with the Hollands, Watts returned to visit Venice for the first time in the summer of 1853. The influence of that trip can be detected in the long red robe that he wears in this self-portrait, with red decisively evoking the art of the Venetians [2].

In Renaissance art, Venetian senators were depicted in long, richly coloured red robes, worn over a white shirt. Two examples of this type of portraiture by the notable Venetian painter Jacopo Tintoretto, include Portrait of a Procurator of St Mark’s, Venice and Portrait of Geronimo Foscarini, Procurator of St Marks, both in the V&A, London collection [3]. It is most likely for this reason that this self-portrait is frequently referred to as The Venetian Senator, despite Watts giving it no formal title. In his previous self-portraits Watts had cast himself as a follower of Van Dyck (COMWG2007.273, 1831) and then a bohemian Romantic aged 17 (COMWG.10, 1834). In this portrait the artist presents himself as a Renaissance man, at a crucial moment in his career.

In the most ambitious self-portrait of his career, Watts not only recognised the classical artistic past he so admired but identified with it and inserted himself within the traditions. We can regard all of Watts’s self-portraits as important historical records of artist. Self-portrait in a red robe is perhaps the last playful self-portrait in the Watts Gallery Trust collection. After this date, Watts settled into the role of a follower of Titian, with his short grey hair, long pointed beard and trademark skull cap. The long robe may have remained, but in his later years, Watts’s gaze never again greeted his viewers.

Explore:

Self-Portrait in the Style of Van Dyck [COMWG2007.273]

Chalk Portrait in the Style of Van Dyck [COMWG2007.695a]

Self Portrait as Fear [COMWG2007.904}

Self Portrait aged 24 [COMWG.184

Self-Portrait of G.F. Watts in Middle Age [COMWG.9]

Self-Portrait of G.F. Watts in Old Age [COMWG.6]

Self-portrait 'Venetian Senator' [COMWG2014.10]

Footnotes:

[1] G.F. Watts quoted in Mary Seton Watts, George Frederic Watts: Annals of an Artist’s Life: Writings on Art, vol. I (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1912), p.245.

[2] Barbara Bryant, A New Acquisition for the Watts Gallery: Portrait of the Painter: ‘A Venetian Senator’ – G.F. Watts’s most private Self-Portrait, unpublished essay, March 2016, Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village object file.

[3] Barbara Bryant, A New Acquisition for the Watts Gallery: Portrait of the Painter: ‘A Venetian Senator’ – G.F. Watts’s most private Self-Portrait, unpublished essay, March 2016, Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village object file.

Further Reading:

Mark Bills and Barbara Bryant, G.F. Watts: Victorian Visionary (London: Yale University Press in association with Watts Gallery).

Barbara Bryant, G F Watts Portraits: Fame & Beauty in Victorian Society (London: National Portrait Gallery, 2004).

Barbara Bryant, G.F. Watts in Kensington: Little Holland House and Gallery (2009).

Barbara Bryant, A New Acquisition for the Watts Gallery: Portrait of the Painter: ‘A Venetian Senator’ – G.F. Watts’s most private Self-Portrait, unpublished essay, March 2016, Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village object file.

G.K. Chesterton, G.F. Watts (Chicago; Rand, McNally & Company, 1904).

Nicholas Tromans, The Art of G.F. Watts (London; Paul Holberton Publishing, 2017).

Chloe Ward, The Drawings of G.F. Watts (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2016).

Mary Seton Watts, George Frederic Watts: Annals of an Artist’s Life: Writings on Art, vol. I (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1912).

Text by Dr Stacey Clapperton