Sir Francis Grant

Francis Grant's self-portrait of 1845 presents the painter at mid-career, when he was one of the most fashionable portrait painters in England and still a dozen years away from his presidency of the Royal Academy. Grant was unusual among leading portraitists in having come to painting relatively late and from an aristocratic sporting background, which gave his work an insider's ease in depicting the landed class whose patronage sustained him. A self-portrait at this stage of his career was both a professional statement and a demonstration of his technical means. The National Portrait Gallery's picture places Grant among the extensive collection of self-portraits by British artists that constitutes a significant strand of the gallery's holdings, documenting how painters saw themselves and wished to be seen by posterity.

Grant paints himself with the confident fluency that distinguished his best portrait work — a warm, slightly loose handling of the face that avoids over-finish while conveying a decisive individual likeness. The background is plain, the pose relaxed and self-possessed. His characteristic treatment of dark clothing against a neutral ground is fully evident.