Self-Portrait

Romney's approach to portraiture combined the formal influences of both Van Dyck's aristocratic grace and the more naturalistic tradition of Dutch portraiture absorbed through Reynolds into a personal style that was immediately recognizable and commercially very successful. His practice of working in rapid, fluid sessions — reportedly producing a portrait head in two or three sittings — gave his portraits a quality of spontaneous life that his more methodical contemporaries sometimes lacked, though the same speed occasionally produced works of less than his best quality. His finest portraits rival Reynolds in psychological penetration while exceeding him in atmospheric freshness.

The self-portrait shows Romney examining himself with unflinching honesty, using a restrained palette and direct, unidealised modeling. The brushwork is broad and confident but lacks the bravura elegance of his commissioned portraits, suggesting an artist confronting his own mortality with characteristic directness.