Self Portrait

Artist John Phillip (Aberdeen, Scotland, 1817 - 1867)

Sitter John Phillip (Aberdeen, Scotland, 1817 - 1867)

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationsPaintings And Drawings

DimensionsOverall: Height: 70.8 cm, Width: 51.4 cm
Frame: Height: 96.8 cm, Width: 78.4 cm

CopyrightOut of copyright - CC0

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDAG004131

Keywords

About MeIn London Phillip enrolled at the Royal Academy schools. There he socialised with a group of fellow artists, some of whom were to become his closest friends. In 1837 Phillip, along with Richard Dadd, Henry O'Neil, William Powell Frith and Augustus Leopold Egg, formed a sketching club, which they called The Clique. The Clique met once a week, often in Dadd's rooms in Great Queen Street, devoting an hour or two to sketching, in pen and ink, illustrations from passages from Shakespeare, Byron and other literary works. Phillip worked one of these studies up into a finished painting Tasso In Disguise Relating his Persecutions to his Sister.

This self portrait was painted the same year that Phillip had Tasso in Disguise, his first major painting, accepted to hang at the Royal Academy summer exhibition. The portrait shows Phillip seated at his easel looking confident and successful - already a world away from his humble beginnings in Aberdeen.