Self Portrait with Bust Michael Dahl

Michael Dahl (1659 - 1743).

Self Portrait with Bust of the Medici Venus.

1691.

Signed and dated lower left M Dahl. pinx. /Ao 1691.

Size 1245 x 991 mm.

Provenance.

Possibly the ‘picture of him in his own hair’ listed by Vertue in 1723.

Anon. sale, Christie’s, 7 March 1952, lot 73. (‘Portrait of an Artist’), 

bought by dealers Leggatt for the NPG.

A self portrait was in the collection of Matthew Prior (H. Bunker Wright & H. C. Montgomery, ‘The Art Collection of a Virtuoso in eighteenth-century England’, Art Bulletin, XXVII, 1945, p 199, no.22).

Continuing with the occasional post on the theme of sculpture depicted in paintings and engravings.

A Bust of  Dahl by Michael Rysbrack, noted by Vertue in 1732 (G. Vertue, Notebooks, Wal. Soc., XXII, 1934 p 56).

The bust is a copy from the Venus de Medici (Uffizi; shown in the Tribuna from 1688) of which Louis XIV had owned five copies in both marble and bronze; one of the most admired classical statues, it was regarded by Evelyn as a ‘miracle of art’. 

Although sold in 1952 as ‘An Artist’, there can be little doubt concerning the sitter’s identity. Signed and dated, the pose is that of a self portrait and comparison with Dahl’s self portrait at Gripsholm of c.1700 is reassuring.

NPG 3822 was painted soon after Dahl had settled in England, the head of the Venus de Medici declaring a degree of sophistication. Millar, remarking on the rich personal colours and striking French quality, described it as Dahl’s masterpiece.

Text and image above from NPG website -

https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitExtended/mw01692/Michael-Dahl?