Self-Portrait aged Seventeen

Painting height: 53.3 cm
Painting width: 38.1 cm
Frame height: 76 cm
Frame width: 57 cm

G.F. Watts created self-portraits throughout his career, but this is believed to be the first painted self-portrait. Aged 17, it was painted the year before he entered the Royal Academy schools and is a testament to his precocious talent. With his flowing locks surrounding his face, he wears an open shite collar with green cravat. The artist confidently stares directly out at the viewer and we gaze back at him, just as he gazed at himself in the looking glass, he used to paint this portrait.

A study of the ‘ever-at-hand model’ [1]. Although he had experimented with self-portraits on paper prior to this work, Self-Portrait aged 17, executed in 1834, is Watts’s first painted self-portrait.

In this unfinished, yet confident sketch, the forms are firmly drawn. Light is indicated as coming from behind Watts, as the highlights in the hair and the sweep of white on his left shoulder indicate. The flesh of the face has not been extensively painted and relies heavily on the neutral ground applied to the canvas. We can see that his white shirt collar and green cravat, with the lapels and shoulders of his jacket briefly sketched out in a few strokes of brown paint.

Towards the bottom left corner of the canvas, a small pencil drawing of a male nude is visible and along the bottom edge, where the crease of his sleeve would be is an unidentifiable mass of black, orange and yellow paint. These oddities suggest that the work was never intended for public display and remained as a canvas which the artist could experiment on. They could also be interpreted as deliberate, playful additions which create the illusion that the portrait was a result of a rapid and spontaneous act, when it is actually a planned and deliberate presentation of the artist.

With his face in shadow, Watts adopts a simple expression, whilst staring directly out at the viewer.  We in turn, gaze back at him, just as he gazed at himself in the looking glass. This creates an intimate exchange between the viewer and the artist, as we stand arm length away, and inhabit the space in which he saw himself [2]. By meeting our gaze, he appears self-assured, as if aware of his artistic talent in the year before he received formal training when he enrolled at the Royal Academy school.

Self-Portraits allow artists to experiment with artistic identity. At this young age, Watts portrays himself as a Romantic. Writing in 1904, the writer and art critic G.K. Chesterton, described the ‘boyish-looking creature’ as belonging ‘to that older race of Bohemians, of which even Thackeray only saw the sunset’ [3].

This portrait is often compared to Amelia Curran’s Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1819 (National Portrait Gallery, London) due to the similarities in pose, gaze and clothing. However, it may also be compared with a much earlier portrait. In Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Self-Portrait, c.1747-8 (National Portrait Gallery, London), Reynolds depicts himself head-on, looking out at the viewer, with an open collar and free, loose hair [4]. Yet, unlike the Shelley or the Reynolds portraits, Watts is not painted with the tools of his trade. He allows the painted surface, with its’ deceptive ease and fluidity’ to speak for his artistic talent, without having to include clear identifiers [5].

The work remained in Watts’s studio during his lifetime and although he found the idea of exhibition his self-portraits as absurd, it was exhibited much later in his career at the New Gallery in 1896-7 [6]. It was then included in the 1905 memorial exhibitions which toured Britain. Watts would continue to experiment with his artistic identity and his position within art history in the self-portraits that he continued to create throughout his lengthy career.

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] Mary Seton Watts, Catalogue of Portraits by G.F. Watts O.M. R.A., Vol. II, c.1915, p.166.

[2] Anthony Bond, ‘Performing the Self?’ in Self Portrait: Renaissance to Contemporary, eds. Anthony Bond and Joanna Woodall (London: National Portrait Gallery, 2005), pp.31-32.

[3] G.K. Chesterton, G. F. Watts (London: Duckworth & Co., 1904), p.26.

[4] Marks Bills and Barbara Bryant, G.F. Watts: Victorian Visionary (New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with Watts Gallery Compton, 2008), p.80.

[5] Marks Bills and Barbara Bryant, G.F. Watts: Victorian Visionary (New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with Watts Gallery Compton, 2008), p.80.

[6] Letter from G.F. Watts to Charles Rickards, 19 November 1881, Watts Correspondence, Heinz Archive, National Portrait Gallery, GFW/1/3.

Further Reading:

Marks Bills and Barbara Bryant, G.F. Watts: Victorian Visionary (New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with Watts Gallery Compton, 2008).

Wilfred Blunt, ‘England’s Michelangelo’: A Biography of George Frederic Watts (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1975).

Anthony Bond and Joanna Woodall, eds., Self Portrait: Renaissance to Contemporary (London: National Portrait Gallery, 2005).

Barbara Bryant, G.F. Watts : portraits; fame & beauty in Victorian society (London: National Portrait Gallery, 2004).

G.K. Chesterton, G. F. Watts (London: Duckworth & Co., 1904).

Victoria Franklin Gould, G.F. Watts: the last great Victorian (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004).

M.H. Spielmann, G.F. Watts, R.A., O.M., as a Great Painter of Portraits: A Lecture, delivered in the Memorial Hall Manchester, 7th June 1905 (London, Sherratt & Hughes, 1905).

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

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

Mary Seton Watts, Catalogue of Portraits by G.F. Watts O.M. R.A., Vol. II, c.1915.

Watts Correspondence, Heinz Archive, National Portrait Gallery, GFW/1/3.

Text by Dr Stacey Clapperton