Self-portrait
by L'ESTIN, Jacques de, Oil on canvas, 63 x 52 cm
On the northern edge of Burgundy, but actually in Champagne, stood the medieval city of Troyes, where the Rome-trained Jacques de L’Estin worked. After painting, probably in Rome, his self-portrait, now in the Mus�e des Beaux-Arts in Troyes, his art continued in a much lighter vein, with plenty of light colour and swirling composition. De L’Estin is a rare example of a painter working in the provinces who kept himself up to date without degenerating into provincial naivety, and some of his pictures have been confused with the work of far greater artists.
Self-portraits are rare for most French seventeenth-century artists. This one shows the influence of Simon Vouet.