Alleged Self-Portrait
Technical details
Description
What is assumed to be a Self-Portrait is an academic drawing made by Goya at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he was a teacher and assistant director of painting, on 30 April 1792. The drawing is on the back of another academic drawing by his student Ignacio de Uranga portraying one man leaning on a lance and another man seated. Both drawings, together with another seven, in addition to a portrait of King Charles IV – a copy of an original by Goya – and a copy of an Ecce Homo by Mateo Cerezo, were sent by Uranga to the San Luis Royal Academy of Noble and Fine Arts of Zaragoza in November 1794 to show the progress of this former student from the Royal Aragonese Economic Society of Friends of the Country School of Art. Ignacio de Uranga was made a provisional member of the academy as the result of these works. The pleasant surprise would be the drawing made by Goya, which may have been used to teach the students at the recently established academy in Zaragoza.