Autorretrato

A poet, historian, orator, novelista and philosopher, besides a painter, Pedro Américo was a man of many talents, as well as many contradictions. He was the artist most directly linked with the person and government of Emperor Dom Pedro II, by bonds of friendship, gratitude and patronage. Nonetheless in 1890, he also served as a congressman in the recently installed Republican regime.

Alongside Victor Meirelles, Américo was responsible for the most important historical works of the Imperial period in Brazil, such as "O grito do Ipiranga [the shout from the Ipiranga]" (Museu Paulista, São Paulo), "A batalha do Avaí [the battle of Avaí]" (Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro) and the "Batalha de Campo Grande [the battle of campo Grande]" (Museu Imperial, Petrópolis). Américo painted various self-portraits, one of which he showed at the Galleria degli Uffizi, in Florence. The one shown here was painted in the same city, and depicts the artist while he was living there, presenting the same physical characteristics that his grandson and biographer, Cardoso de Oliveira, described when he wrote that Américo was “genuinely Brazilian, of medium height, slim, dark complexioned and pallid, with black eyes and hair, a melancholic and serene air, na expressive face characterized by large eyebrows, a full mustache and an inseparable eyeglass; this is, roughly, the modest physical aspects of this great figure.