Recalling his youth in Armenia, Arshile Gorky painted this small, jewel-like picture in New York when he was twenty-four years old. Gorky may have based the likeness on a photograph, such as the one he used for two much larger self-portraits with his mother (1926–36; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). More likely, however, the picture is based on Cézanne's portrait of Louis Guillaume (1879–80; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), which had been reproduced in black and white in the magazine Cahiers d'art in 1927 and which was exhibited in New York a year later. Emulating the melancholy pose of Cézanne's figure, as well as the white neckerchief, hairline, and facial features, Gorky pays tribute to the master who influenced his own work significantly in the late 1920s.