We are looking into the studio of Pierre Subleyras, a late Baroque painter born in the south of France. After training at the French Academy, he settled in Rome in 1728. Until his death there he maintained a flourishing studio chiefly known for portraits, alongside Christian and mythological history paintings.

The studio we see in the painting is a high room in which Subleyras has collected the greatest successes of his artistic career, as if to present his life’s work. In addition to paintings we also see a number of replicas of ancient classical sculptures – for example, the small-format plaster cast of the Farnese Hercules placed conspicuously in the foreground. It stands symbolically for a virtuous, heroic life – and for Subleyras’ familiarity with antiquity.  

In the left foreground the artist has put himself in the painting. Subleyras turns with a gesture of his right hand to address the viewers directly and draw them into his studio – possibly as potential customers. In his left hand he is presenting a portrait of himself as a young man. And Subleyras even appears a third time in his painting. As the seated figure with his back to us at the easel in the middle distance, he is completing a portrait of a woman. The subject of that work leads our gaze to the adjacent portrait of Pope Benedict the Fourteenth, who was one of Subleyras’ most important patrons. The child rummaging in a chest near the artist is his daughter Maria-Clementina. Later she followed in her father’s footsteps to become a painter herself.