Self-Portrait

The medallion shows the left-facing profile portrait of a man aged between forty and fifty. His shoulderlength hair is mildly wavy. He is wearing a flat hat with an unusual band and a close-fitting coat with broad lapels, the redingote (i.e. English riding-coat) that had come into fashion around 1780. The three works of Franz Xaver Messerschmidt’s that are denoted as selfportraits resemble the portrait on the Berlin medallion so closely that this too can be described as the artist’s idealized self-portrait. As well as his famous “character heads”, Messerschmidt also made numerous commissioned portraits and alabaster medallions like this one. After a successful career in Vienna, he retired to Bratislava in 1777, and it was there that he crafted this simple but highly expressive and naturalistic self-portrait.