Self-portrait
Recently the Self-Portrait by AntoniViladomat has been restored. The work was badly damaged because in 1814, during the First Carlist War, a bonfire burned in the middle of a square of Berga, alongside 262 pieces by AntoniViladomat and of his son Josep. An old restoration recuperated the face and the hands of the portrait. Now, the restoration has allowed us to recuperate part of the figure of the painter, that had remained hidden by subsequent repainting and by the frame, and to discover that it was a reused canvas, because underneath, the radiography uncovered the portrait of a lady, which was what was originally painted on the canvas.
The comparison of this portrait with another that Josep Viladomat painted of his father and is conserved in the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library) of Madrid, allows us to confirm that the effigy corresponds to Antoni Viladomat. He appears dressed according to the fashion of the 18th century, with a wig, and drawn in perspective, in clear vindication of his intellectual facet.
Circa 1750
82 x 62.5 cm
Purchased 1951
046517-000