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Autoportrait ou portrait de l’artiste peint par lui-même? Se peindre soi-même à l’époque moderne

In early modern France the word 'self-portrait' did not exist. Such an object was described simply as 'a portrait of the artist painted by himself'. This article argues that this nomenclature is not a question of semantics, but an indication of different modes of representation. Williams's analysis focuses on Champaigne and Plattemontagne’s Double Self-Portrait (1654) – a painting with two sitters and two creators. She asks how and why this strange painting could be unproblematic in its own time and yet now sit so uneasily with contemporary notions of self-portraiture as introspective studies by single authors expressing their own subjectivity.