Self Portrait

The painting is unusual for its date as a self portrait in its openly challenging and brooding character, which is underlined by the Latin inscription on the stone, lower left, below the right hand of the painter: 'Be quiet, unless your speech be better than silence'. In composition and in its sombre colouring the portrait recalls the half-length representations of Philosophy that Ribera had popularised in Naples.The painting was probably painted about 1640 at the beginning of Rosa's period in Florence, and is first recorded there in the Niccolini collection.On loan to the exhibition 'Self Portrait: Renaissance to Contemporary' at the National Portrait Gallery, London from October 2005 to January 2006, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney from February to May 2006.

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