Self-Portrait. J.M.W. Turner. c.1799. Oil on canvas. 74.3 x 58.4 cm. Collection: Tate, accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest, in 1856. Accession no. N0458. Image kindly made available for reproduction under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Deed.
This memorable self-portrait shows the young Turner as a raffish bohemian, his face and necktie delineated in expressive strokes. — Simon Cooke
Turner's biographer, James Hamilton, long ago noted that Turner was "highly self-conscious" and had a "tendency to mystify" (Turner: A Life, 1-2), and more recently Hamilton has questioned whether this well-known painting is, indeed, a genuine self-portrait ("The Problem of the Portrait"). However, writing in the Art History pages of the Daily Telegraph, the critic Bernard Richards seeks to answer Hamilton's objections by pointing out that such self-portraits "are usually done from mirrors, and sometimes artists fail to compensate for the distortions involved. Pace Hamlet, mirrors do not hold up images of reality, because they are reversed there." Richards explains:
A detail suggesting the Turner portrait might be influenced by a mirror image is the fact that the right-hand side of his waistcoat overlaps the left, whereas in male costumes since at least the Middle Ages the left side overlaps the right. As it happens there is another Turner self-portrait, in the National Portrait Gallery and dated circa 1790, where the right side of the jacket incorrectly overlaps the left. This is a familiar feature of self-portraits. The painting that van Gogh did showing his bandaged ear has been done from a mirror image, since it shows the right ear, whereas it was in fact the left, and in addition his jacket is buttoned on the wrong side. Other artists have made similar mistakes, including Monet. Although Dürer, with his extensive experience of engraving and the problem of reversal, got it right. [8]
Related Material
Commentary by Simon Cooke, with comments by Richards added later by Jacqueline Banerjee.
Bibliography
Hamilton, James. "The Problem of the Portrait." Turner Society News, 145 (Spring 2026): 4–14.
_____. "The Problem of the Portrait." Turner: A Life. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1997.
Richards, Bernard. "Turner and the Tell-Tale Waistcoat." The Daily Telegraph, 25 July 2026. Review section, 8-9.
Created 11 December 2025
Last modified 26 July 2026