About the Artwork
Known for his rebellious, fiercely independent personality as for his brooding, wild landscapes, Salvator Rosa trained as a painter in Naples and worked for extended periods of time in Florence at the Medici court. A talented musician and playwright, Rosa also gained fame for his acerbic satires, some of which attacked contemporary artists and earned him powerful enemies, including the sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Rosa was fascinated by the darker impulses of human nature, and he captured his own gaunt features and intense demeanor in a series of striking self-portraits. In this likeness — painted in the 1650s when Rosa was living in Rome — the artist stares down the viewer with a smoldering, almost angry expression that fully lives up to his tempestuous reputation.
Self-Portrait
1650s
Salvator Rosa
1615-1673
Italian
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Oil on canvas
Unframed: 28 3/8 × 24 5/8 inches (72 × 62.5 cm) Framed: 37 × 32 1/8 × 3 inches (94 × 81.6 × 7.6 cm)
Paintings
European Painting
Founders Society Purchase, John and Rhoda Lord Family Fund
66.191
Public Domain
Markings
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Provenance
private collection (France):Mrs. Loraine Uhler (New York, New York, USA);
1966, purchased by (M. Knoedler & Co., New York, New York, USA);
1966-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
For more information on provenance, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Art in Italy, 1600–1700. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1965, p. 139, no. 153 (ill.).
"Accessions." Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 46, no. 1 (1967): 18–26, pp. 18, 20 (ill.).
Fredericksen, Burton B. and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972, pp. 177, 517, 580.
Salvator Rosa. Exh. cat., Hayward Gallery. London, 1973, p. 23, no. 11. [dated early 1640s]
Salerno, Luigi. L'Opera Completa di Salvator Rosa. Milan, 1975, p. 87, no. 35.
Mosby, Dewey F. Cinco siglos de obras maestras de la pintura en collecciones norteamericanas cedidas en préstamo a Costa Rica. Exh. cat., Museo de Jade, Instituto de Seguros. San José, 1978, pp. 100–101, cat. 38 (ill.).
Wallace, Richard W. The Etchings of Salvator Rosa. Princeton, 1979, pp. 13–14 (ill.).
Civiltà del seicento a Napoli. Exh. cat., Museo di Capodimonte and Museo Pignatelli. Naples, 1984, vol. 1: p. 428. [see entry, Salvator Rosa "Ritratto di gentiluomo armato"]
Roworth, Wendy Wassyng. "The Consolations of Friendship: Salvator Rosa's Self-Portrait for Giovanni Battista Ricciardi." Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal 23 (1988): 103–124, pp. 113, 115 (ill.). [as by Salvator Rosa (?)]
Important and Fine Old Master Pictures. Sales cat., Christie's. London, April 15, 1992, p. 78.
Scott, Jonathan. Salvator Rosa: His Life and Times. New Haven and London, 1995, p. 239, n. 11.
Guratzsch, Herwig, ed. Salvator Rosa, genie der zeichnung: studien und skizzen aus Leipzig und Haarlem. Exh. cat., Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig. Leipzig, 1999, pp. 16–17 (ill.).
Bandes, Susan J. Pursuits and Pleasures: Baroque Paintings from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Exh. cat., Dennos Museum Center, Kalamazoo Art Museum, Kresge Art Museum, Muskegon Museum of Art. Battle Creek, 2003, pp. 8 (ill.), 9, 34-35 (ill.).
Bissell, R. Ward, Andria Derstine and Dwight Miller. Masters of Italian Baroque Painting: The Detroit Institute of Arts. London, 2005, pp. 10–11, 172–174, no. 56. (ill.).
Salvator Rosa: Tra mito e magia. Exh. cat., Museo di Capodimonte. Naples, 2008, pp. 50–51 (ill.).
Langdon, Helen. "Portraits and 'Heads.'" In Salvator Rosa. Exh. cat., Dulwich Picture Gallery and Kimbell Art Museum. London, 2010, p. 104, fig. 58 (ill.).
Volpi, Caterina. Salvator Rosa (1615–1673) "Pittore Famoso." Rome, 2014, pp. 227, 229–230, 427, 429, 449, 465–469, no. 146 (ill.); p. 472, 511.
Derstine, Andria. "The Detroit Institute of Arts and Italian Baroque Painting." In Buying Baroque: Italian Seventeenth-Century Paintings Come to America, ed. Edgar Peters Bowron. University Park, 2017, p. 99.
Hoare, Alexandra. Salvator Rosa, Friendship and the Free Artist in Seventeenth-Century Italy. London, 2018, pp. 49–50 (ill.).
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Salvator Rosa, Self-Portrait, 1650s, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, John and Rhoda Lord Family Fund, 66.191.
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