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Goya Self-Portrait

Self-portrait with Spectacles
1797-1800 Oil on canvas
63 cm x 49 cm
24 7/8 inches by 19 3/8inches
Musèe Goya, Castres

In de Salas book (from Goya, Mayflower 1979, page 76,) he states that this self-portrait painting is dated conclusively at the time Goya was working upon Los Caprichos, and that in this image he is in fact wearing the glasses he used specifically for engraving the Caprichos plates.

"Symbolizing a bookish, intellectual capacity and enlarging the eyes as signifiers of the wearer's powers of perception and reason, the inclusion of spectacles in portraits served to express an activity as intangible as the workings of the mind, and more particularly, the imagination. Goya's Self-Portrait with spectacles makes the sense of the sight into its principal theme."
From Sarah Symmons book Goya, Phaidon Press, 1998, page 133-136

There is a duplicate of this painting listed (in de Salas' book Goya) as at the Musèe Bonnat in Bayonne. This image's size is 54 cm x 39.5 sm. The museum web site is here

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art of goya web site ©1997-2006 Erik E. Weems
Original images are copyright to their respective owners.
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