Famous work · not an exact-location map point
Myself: Portrait – Landscape
Henri Rousseau paints himself standing over the Seine in Paris, with the new Eiffel Tower, a flag-decked ship and a balloon behind him.
No single real-world viewpoint
A self-portrait ('Moi-même, portrait-paysage') with an invented composite of real Paris landmarks — 'not a true view from one spot'; the Eiffel Tower is a small symbolic skyline note.
Myself: Portrait – Landscape — at a glance
- Artist
- Henri Rousseau (‘Le Douanier’, 1844–1910)
- Year
- 1890
- Movement
- Naïve / Post-Impressionism
- Place
- The Seine and quays, Paris, with the new Eiffel Tower
- Viewpoint
- Real Paris landmarks assembled into an invented composite
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 143 × 110 cm
- Now at
- National Gallery in Prague
Overview
Myself: Portrait – Landscape is Henri Rousseau's grandest self-portrait, painted in 1890. The self-taught painter, then a Paris toll-collector, shows himself full-length and larger than the buildings, palette and brush in hand, black-suited against a bright Paris scene: the Seine with a flag-covered ship, an iron bridge, and — small on the skyline — the new Eiffel Tower and a drifting balloon. It is oil on canvas, about 143 by 110 cm, and it hangs in the National Gallery in Prague.
Rousseau titled it a ‘portrait-landscape’, a category he claimed to have invented: a portrait figure combined with a full landscape setting.
Where was Myself: Portrait – Landscape painted?
Scholarship The setting is assembled from real, identifiable Paris features of 1890: the Seine and its quays, an iron road-and-rail bridge, and on the horizon the Eiffel Tower, completed only the year before for the 1889 World's Fair, together with a hot-air balloon of the kind flown at the fair. Rousseau flattens and rearranges these into an emblem of the modern city rather than a true view from one spot; the individual landmarks are real, the composite is invented.
What is in the painting?
Rousseau stands on a paved quay in the foreground, feet apart, holding a palette lettered with the names of his first and second wives and a long brush. He wears a black coat and beret and a rosette. Behind him a large ship dressed overall with coloured flags lies at a quay; an iron bridge with small figures crosses the Seine; beyond, low on the skyline, the Eiffel Tower and a red-and-yellow balloon float against a pale sky with light clouds.
Look closely
The palette inscription
Lettered with the names of Rousseau's two wives — the second updated after he remarried.
The beflagged ship
A vessel dressed overall in coloured signal flags lies at the quay behind him.
The Eiffel Tower and balloon
Both small on the skyline — the tower barely a year old, the balloon a memory of the 1889 fair.
The reversed scale
Rousseau towers over the bridge and buildings, deliberately or not ignoring perspective.
Analysis
Composition and technique
The painter is scaled up like a monument; the city is laid out flat and small behind him, each element crisp and separate.
Scholarship Rousseau ignores academic perspective: he makes himself far larger than the bridge and buildings, sets everything out in clear, hard-edged planes, and lets each object — ship, bridge, tower, balloon, cloud — sit distinct against its neighbour. The ‘wrong’ scale and the frontal pose are exactly what later admirers such as Picasso valued.
Colour and light
A black-suited figure against clear, flat colour — bright flags, blue river, pale sky.
The palette is clean and unmodulated: solid black for the figure, primary colours in the flags and balloon, even blue-grey water and sky. There is little shadow or atmosphere; the light is flat and total, which sharpens every silhouette.
Meaning and interpretation
Interpretations differ. What the artist documented, what museums and scholars propose, and later or speculative theories are marked and kept separate.
The ‘portrait-landscape’
Rousseau presented the picture as a new genre of his own devising and as a confident public statement of himself as an artist — standing over modern Paris with the tools of his trade, at the moment the Eiffel Tower had made the city a symbol of the new age.
Naïve or deliberate?
Whether Rousseau's distortions of scale and perspective are untutored error or a personal style has been argued since his lifetime; the modernists who championed him treated them as a fresh, deliberate vision.
History & provenance
The painting was acquired in the twentieth century for the Czechoslovak national collection and hangs in the National Gallery in Prague.
Sources
- National Gallery in Prague (Národní galerie Praha) — collection entry for Henri Rousseau, ‘Myself: Portrait – Landscape’ (‘Moi-même, portrait-paysage’, 1890; oil on canvas, c. 143 × 110 cm)
- Götz Adriani, ‘Henri Rousseau’ (exhibition catalogue)
Frequently asked
Where is this self-portrait set?
On a quay by the Seine in Paris, with an iron bridge, a flag-decked ship and — on the skyline — the Eiffel Tower and a hot-air balloon. The landmarks are real features of Paris around 1890, arranged by Rousseau into a composite rather than a true single view.
Why is the Eiffel Tower so small and Rousseau so big?
Rousseau ignored academic perspective and scaled himself up like a monument over a flat, small city. Later modernists admired exactly this ‘wrong’ scale as a fresh way of seeing.
What is written on the palette?
The names of Rousseau's two wives, Clémence and Joséphine — he updated the second name after remarrying.
What is a ‘portrait-landscape’?
Rousseau's own term for a picture that combines a portrait figure with a complete landscape setting; he claimed to have invented the category and this is his prime example.
Where is the painting now?
In the National Gallery in Prague.
