Self-Portrait

This etching by Raphael Soyer is an earlier state of the Self Portrait (TF 2004.7) the artist made at age seventy-five from a still-extant copper plate (TF 2004.3.1). It is one of numerous self-images this realist artist made throughout his career to record his appearance at a particular time of life. For this state of the print, Soyer almost completely delineated the main features of his face and head, while the splotchy background is not yet fully resolved. He made this impression to check his progress in realizing the image. Comparison between this impression and the finished etching reveals that between the two states Soyer added more shading to further modulate the tonal areas on the face and neck, thereby heightening the illusion of three-dimensionality, and added dense cross-hatching to evoke a dark, shadowy background.