Until the middle of the nineteenth century almost every painter painted at least one reflection, that of their own face in a self-portrait. There’s even a gallery specialising in its unique collection, the Uffizi in Florence, Italy, where they go back six hundred years to Taddeo Gaddi in 1440-50 and Filippino Lippi in 1485. This article looks at a few of the more unusual ones that didn’t make it to the Uffizi.

The most radical and impressive of Gustave Courbet’s early paintings is The Desperate Man from about 1843, in which the artist grimaces wildly at his own canvas. Augmented by his signature in bright red, it might as well have been his manifesto.

Adriaen van der Werff’s Self-portrait with the Portrait of his Wife, Margaretha van Rees, and their Daughter Maria from 1699 is an ingenious family portrait. He holds his palette and brushes with his left hand, and around his neck is a medallion awarded by his patron, the Elector Palatine. His right hand supports a portrait of his wife Margaretha van Rees (1669-1732) and their daughter Maria (1692-1731).

Lovis Corinth’s Last Self-Portrait, painted just two months before his death, is unusual in showing him with his reflection in a mirror. He is balding rapidly, his cheeks sunken, and his eyes are bloodshot and tired.

Pierre Bonnard’s unusual composition in this Interior from about 1905 doesn’t show the woman’s back in the mirror, but a chair placed deliberately in front of the mirror and Bonnard himself, not painting but sat at a table.

There’s more uncertainty as to whether Artemisia Gentileschi’s brilliant painting of the Allegory of Painting (c 1638-9) is a self-portrait. This striking angle of view can be accounted for if this was a self-portrait composed using two mirrors, one placed above and on the left of the painter, the other directly in front of her, where she is gazing so intently. If so, it was particularly ingenious because the reflection in the second mirror would have normal chirality (left and right would not be reversed).

However, it has been suggested that this isn’t a self-portrait, in which case her choice of view would have been most unusual. It’s believed to have been painted during her stay in London, possibly for King Charles I, as it appears to have passed straight into the Royal Collection, where it has remained ever since.

Clara Peeters’ still life with Flowers and Gold Cups of Honour from 1612 reveals multiple miniature self-portraits reflected in the gold cup at the right. These are shown more clearly in the detail below. To project the image of herself correctly for each of the facets I suspect she must have set up a convex mirror in the same alignment as that facet on the cup.

The most famous of all these elaborate self-portraits is surely that of Diego Velázquez in Las Meninas from about 1656-57.

Like many of his mature works, this is a portrait, but unlike any of the others it’s a group portrait of eleven people and a dog in a room in the Alcázar Palace, which is depicted faithfully, according to palace inventories of the time.

The largest figure, although out of the limelight and over to the left, is that of Velázquez himself. He looks towards the viewer, with a neutral face of concentration. His right hand holds a brush with his paint laid out on a wooden palette held by his left hand, which also clutches a bundle of other brushes. He is at work on the three metre (ten foot) high canvas in front him, which happens to be the same size as that on which he painted this work.

Two figures given a prominent and unusual place are the King and Queen, who are shown reflected in a rectangular plane mirror on the far wall. There has been dispute over whether the reflection shows the couple stood where the viewer is, or the mirror is reflecting their painted images on Velázquez’s canvas.

As the mirror is to the left of the centreline of the painting, it’s hard to see that its image of the royal couple could show them standing where the viewer is, and more likely that what appears there is part of Velázquez’s painting. However, the artist had previously been ‘creative’ in his use of reflections in the Rokeby Venus, and at least part of his body should here be obstructing a clear line of sight between what is on his canvas and the surface of the mirror.