Courtesy of Hood Museum of Art

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At age twenty-nine, François-Joseph Navez arrived in Brussels with Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825), with whom he had been working for three years in Paris before the French artist was forced into exile. Once David settled into his new studio in the capital of Belgium, he built up a considerable portrait practice. The two artists became particularly close, and Navez’s work from this time strongly reflected the elder painter’s influence in its technical accomplishment and naturalism.

In 1817, with support from David and others, Navez obtained a grant to go to Italy, where he remained for nearly five years. Upon his return to his homeland, Navez began to incorporate subtle depictions of fabrics in his paintings, recalling the style of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) whom he knew and greatly admired in Rome.

The portrait of the artist by himself or herself with some of the accoutrements of their profession – palette, brushes, easel, mahlstick, and works of art – may at one level have been little more than a shop sign, but at another it is an expression of the high regard for their art. In the case of Navez’s self-portrait, instead of representing himself in the act of painting, he holds a drawing tool as though he wanted to emphasize the importance of disegno – meaning both drawing and design – in all forms of art. In the face of increasing critical reviews during this period of his career, Navez portrays himself against a neutral background as a well-dressed, self-confident, and proud artist.

T. Barton Thurber