Self-portrait with a Wine Glass

Arnold Böcklin's Self-portrait with a Wine Glass (1885) is one of several self-portraits by the Swiss Symbolist master — unusual among his mythological and allegorical work but consistent with the tradition of painters documenting themselves at different life stages. At 59, Böcklin was at the height of his fame — the Isle of the Dead had made him one of the most celebrated painters in the German-speaking world. The wine glass introduces a note of convivial humanity into what might otherwise be a grave self-examination, suggesting the pleasure-taking that balanced his more serious mythological visions.

Böcklin renders himself with the same illusionist technical mastery he brought to mythological subjects — the self-portrait face observed with the same care he devoted to ancient gods and sea creatures. His palette is warm and naturalistic for the face, with the wine glass providing a specific technical challenge: the transparent vessel, the wine's color, the reflections and refractions in glass. The composition is relatively straightforward compared to his elaborate mythological scenes, focusing attention on the painter's own physical and psychological presence.