Collection Online
Self-portrait

Self-portrait
(1906)

Medium
oil on canvas

Measurements
46.3 × 38.2 cm

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

Download
 

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

Accession Number
2004.184

Department
Australian Painting

This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation