Self-Portrait aged Nineteen, by Arthur Hughes (1832-1915)

Dennis T. Lanigan

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Self-Portrait aged Nineteen

Arthur Hughes

1850

Oil on board

7 x 5 ½ inches (18 x 14.5 cm)

Image courtesy of Dreweatts Auctions

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Image and caption material provided by Dennis T. Lanigan. [Click on the image to enlarge it, and mouse over the text for the links. See below for commentary.]

This is an autograph copy of a self-portrait of Arthur Hughes in profile, aged nineteen, when he was still a student at the Royal Academy Schools. Hughes was obviously very handsome as a young man and had an agreeable personality making him a great favourite amongst his friends and colleagues. William Michael Rossetti in his Reminiscences remarked on both his appearance and temperament:

His face, giving evidence of his Welsh parentage, was singularly bright and taking - dark abundant hair, vivid eyes, good features, and ruddy cheeks which earned him among his fellow-students the nickname of "Cherry." If I had to pick out, from amid my once-numerous acquaintances of the male sex, the sweetest and most ingenuous nature of all, the least carking and querulous, and the freest from "envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness," I should probably find myself bound to select Mr. Hughes. [147]

The principal version of the portrait is in the National Portrait Gallery, London (accession no. NPG 2759). Hughes's painted profile on a plain ground recalls the low-relief portrait profiles produced by the Pre-Raphaelite sculptors Alexander Munro and Thomas Woolner at about the same time. Munro was one of Hughes's closest friends in the 1850s. The two had met as students in the Royal Academy Schools and had shared a studio for a time.

In c.1849 Hughes produced another self-portrait entitled The Young Poet, now in the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery (accession no. 38'35). This portrait shows the youthful Hughes stretched out on the ground, his head resting on his right hand, and wearing medieval costume.

Bibliography

"Arthur Hughes ." National Portrait Gallery London. Web. 14 March 2025.

Roberts, Len. Arthur Hughes His Life and Works. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors' Club, 1997, cat. 8. 122-23.

Rose, Andrea. Pre-Raphaelite Portraits. Oxford: The Oxford Illustrated Press, 1981. 45.

Rossetti, William Michael. Some Reminiscences of William Michael Rossetti. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906.

Created 1 March 2025

Last modified (commentary added) 14 March 2025