EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself

This portrait of a woman holding a quill pen by Salvator Rosa is thought to depict a personification of Poetry. This is more than likely because Poetry's figure faces the canvas as the artist himself would have when painting it and he certainly thought of himself as a poet. She also, as painters do, looks out over her shoulder towards her model, in this case the artist himself in front of the "real" canvas. She has the pose of a painter. But what will she "write" on? Not the book because it is closed. The only alternative is the background. With a quill in place of brush she is about to paint the background: a "blank canvas" within the painting.

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This picture can be compared to a real "self-portrait", now owned by the Metropolitan Museum in New York. She has the same expression; her pose is similar to his; her face resembles his as a curator at the Metropolitan Museum noted; and they both hold pens, writing or about to write.{ref3}

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Still more compelling is the form of their hair, wreath and headwrap: features sprouting out horizontally on both sides in exactly the same manner. This cannot be coincidence and, as far as I know, has also never been noted.

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Whether or not the man's portrait is a self-portrait, he clearly represents the artist; and, as Poetry, her figure must too. She, a woman, represents the androgyny of Salvator's mind and, based on Donald Bruce's observation that she appears to be pregnant, his conception too.{ref4} She is a visual metaphor for Salvator Rosa's conception of this very painting in his own creative mind.