Antonio Canova

Canova’s self‐portrait is considered as one of the most beautiful in the collection. Canova was the most admired and celebrated artist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and had an international clientele. This self‐portrait was donated to the Uffizi by one of its directors, the Florentine nobleman Giovanni degli Alessandri. The painting is signed and dated 1790, when the master had reached his maturity as an artist.