Self-Portrait

Chinnery painted more than a dozen self-portraits, the first of which he exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, in 1798; this is the most intimate and engaging of them all. An enigmatic figure, Chinnery was eccentric and volatile, with a tendency to hypochondria, a raconteur and wit with a gift for friendship. This likeness was painted in China and must date to the years 1825–28. Its first owner was the United States consul Benjamin Chew Wilcox, a businessman in the opium trade who commissioned a full-length portrait of himself from the artist (The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd.).