Self-Portrait with Dr. Arrieta

1820

Oil on canvas, 114.6 × 76.5 cm. Minneapolis Institute of Art

A doctor props up a gravely ill patient and offers him a glass of medicine. This is the artist's last self-portrait, a gift of thanks to the physician who saved his life.

The doctor was Eugenio García Arrieta, who treated him through an acute, dangerous illness late in 1819.
Look at the dim faces behind the bed; the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) suggests they may be hallucinations.
An inscription along the lower edge calls the doctor a friend and gives the painter's age as 73.
Mia notes that pairing picture and inscription recalls the ex-voto, a devotional offering made in Spain to give thanks after surviving a calamity. Here the painter turns his own brush with death into the subject.
Bought by Mia through the Ethel Morrison Van Derlip Fund.

Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art (open access) · Public domain