EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself

Titian's portraits of Emperor Charles V are the source of Van Dyck's a century later. Titian knew Charles and presumably left us with an accurate record of his likeness (left). Yet as shown in a separate entry, the Emperor looks so like Titian's own self-portraits (right) that it cannot possibly be a good likeness. Nevertheless Titian's depiction was, even by Van Dyck's day, the iconic image of the emperor.

When Van Dyck, inspired by Titian's equestrian portrait of Charles, painted something similar, he created a Baroque version with a prancing horse. Yet the face, even though it retains the lantern jaw of the Hapsburgs, is different. Charles is younger and markedly different. Given Van Dyck's unfamiliarity with Charles' true likeness, why would he change what he looked like? 

If we compare Van Dyck's portrayal to a self-portrait done a few years earlier, we see major similarities even though the overall likeness is different.

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The deep-set eyes, the beginning of the eyebrow on the left, an identical one on the other side, the same line of the nose and the protruding lower lip. All these features are alike. Van Dyck, at twenty-four years of age, already knew that the Emperor was half-"Titian" and, in painting himself as Emperor Van Dyck, announced his own arrival. By the time he died at 41, he was an acknowledged Emperor of Art.