Self-Portrait Christian Seybold

The hyperrealism of the painting is striking. We see the self-portrait of the painter as an old man with a face furrowed with crow’s feet and deep wrinkles, the meticulous details of which – a striking example of pore painting – give an almost unnaturally perfect illusion of reality. The model faces the viewer with an unvarnished frankness and everyday simplicity. The depiction of the costume is also brilliantly executed; one can almost feel the caressing softness of the fur trims of the coat and the hat.
Seybold painted this picture barely twenty years before Sir Joshua Reynolds, the English painter prince, labelled this extreme manifestation of naturalism “vulgar” at the Royal Academy.