Self-portrait
Frederick William MacMonnies American
MacMonnies concentrated his artistic efforts on painting from 1900-1904, producing at least nine self-portraits. Here, he stands with brush and palette in front of his copy of Diego Velázquez’s "The Drinkers," also known as "The Triumph of Bacchus" (1628-29), which appears in reverse due to MacMonnies posing before a mirror. MacMonnies’s broad and loose brushwork emulates Velázquez’s painterly style in evident admiration for the Spanish Baroque master. In February 1904, MacMonnies copied paintings in Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado, which includes the "Triumph of Bacchus" in its extensive collection of works by Velázquez.