Terms and conditions of use
Self-portrait
(1906)
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
The Joseph Brown Collection. Presented through the NGV Foundation by Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004
- Gallery location
- Gallery 20
Level 3, NGV Australia
About this work
Like many artists of the period, George Lambert was influenced by the grand tradition of portrait painting and in particular the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez. Lambert’s Self-portrait, with its distinct use of light and shade, was closely modelled on Velázquez’s Philip IV of Spain, 1656, and was a painting which Lambert could examine in detail in the National Gallery in London. When Lambert initially exhibited Self-portrait at the Modern Society of Portrait Painters in London in 1907, contemporary critics admired the subject but took exception to the reference to smoking, firmly stating that the ‘picture would be excellent if he would only paint out the cigarette’.
Artwork Details
The Joseph Brown Collection. Presented through the NGV Foundation by Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation
Level 3, NGV Australia