ABSTRACT
A long-haired young man wearing a large bowler hat sits facing us at an open window. Poised to draw or write on a blank page of a sketch- or notebook, he uses a goose quill cut to a fine point and holds an ink-well in his left hand [Fig. 21]. 1 Due to perspectival distortion, his hands may seem a little too large. Light washes lend relief to his clothing and face. It is, I believe, a self-portrait, corresponding along general lines with what the young artist must have seen in a mirror, but with an added setting and the customary reversal to a lifelike right-handedness. 2 The drawing was acquired as a self-portrait by the Fondation Custodia in Paris in 2012. 3
