Self-Portrait in a Hat (c. 1790): Art, History and Details

Self-Portrait in a Hat (c. 1790) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson (French, 1767–1824).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson created this self-portrait as a young man, in his 20s, while living in Italy after winning the prestigious Prix de Rome. The artist meets the viewer's gaze boldly and directly from underneath his distinctive hat. The drawing is one of several depictions that Girodet created of himself around this time and may have been intended as a gift by exchange for a colleague.

Object facts

• Title: Self-Portrait in a Hat
• Date: c. 1790
• Creator attribution: Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson (French, 1767–1824)
• Culture: France
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: black chalk, with stumping, heightened with traces of white gouache
• Dimensions: Sheet: 21.6 x 17.5 cm (8 1/2 x 6 7/8 in.); Secondary Support: 21.6 x 17.5 cm (8 1/2 x 6 7/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1978.79

A detail from the museum

Self-portraiture was a common practice among the young artists who, like Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson, worked in the studio of the acclaimed history painter Jacques-Louis David.

Collection credit

Delia E. Holden Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1978.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 66, no. 1 (January 1979): 3–47.
• Champion, Jean-Loup. "A Theater of Mirrors: Girodet's Self-Portraits." In Girodet, 1767-1824. Sylvain Bellenger, ed. Exh. Cat. Paris: Gallimard, 2006.
• Arasa, Yaelle. Davidiennes: Les Femmes Peintres de l'Atelier de Jacques-Louis David (1768-1825). Paris: L'Harmattan, 2019.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.