self-portrait

thumb|Vincent van Gogh, Self-portrait without beard, end September 1889, (F 525), Oil on canvas, 40 × 31 cm., Private collection. This may have been Van Gogh's last self-portrait. Given as a birthday gift to his mother. thumb|Self-portrait by Judith Leyster, a [[Dutch Golden Age painter, mostly of genre subjects. NGA, 1630. In reality, she probably did not wear expensive clothes like these while painting.]]

Self-portraits are portraits artists make of themselves. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the mid-15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting themselves, as either the main subject or important characters in their work. With better and cheaper mirrors, and the advent of the panel portrait, many painters, sculptors and printmakers tried some form of self-portraiture. Portrait of a Man in a Turban by Jan van Eyck of 1433 may well be the earliest known panel self-portrait. He painted a separate portrait of his wife, and he belonged to the social group that had begun to commission portraits, already more common among wealthy Netherlanders than south of the Alps. The genre is venerable, but not until the Renaissance, with increased wealth and interest in the individual as a subject, did it become truly popular.