Getty Museum

Self-Portrait

Creator

Charles Samuel Keene

Photographer · 1823–1891

All works by this person →

Artist

More on Getty ULAN

Date: about 1845
Medium: Pen and brown ink over black chalk
Culture: British
Department: Drawings
Institution: Getty Museum

Made when Charles Keene was only about 20 years old, this powerful and engaging self-portrait speaks volumes for his draftsmanship. Based on careful observation of detail and a subtle rendering of light and shade, it captures the artist close-up wearing a hat, perhaps a fez. The quality of Keene's penwork in brown ink is extraordinary, with insistent hatching and cross-hatching, and stippled effects in areas of the cheek. At about this time, when Keene was apprenticed to the book-illustrators Whymper Brothers, he made a number of etchings - "scratching on copper" as he called it - and the influence of this technique is apparent here in the precise draftsmanship.

View at Getty Museum ↗

The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.

Get printable QR codes

Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.

Open this page

See at Getty Museum

Related across collections

Semantically similar works from Getty Museum and other institutions.