Self Portrait in a Group of Friends

Here, the Italian artist Francesco Hayez depicts himself with his friends: on the left, the painters Pelagio Palagi and Giovanni Migliara (in profile); on the right, the painter Giuseppe Molteni (in a top hat) and the writer Tommaso Grossi. Hayez is wearing a painter’s cap and round glasses. The image is intriguing; he appears unassuming and at the same time ironic and pleased.

The unfinished background, merges with the materials of their garments and unites the figures. Friendship and belonging are perhaps the true themes of the painting, almost a manifesto of the Romantic Milan.

This self-portrait, actually a group portrait, has been viewed as the equivalent in painting of Il Brindisi (The Toast), a dialect poem by Tommaso Grossi. He recited it in 1824 at a dinner organized to celebrate the recovery of Hayez from a long illness. The date 1827, at the bottom left, is not in Hayez’s authograph; the picture may have been painted at a date closer to the banquet.