This could be a self-portrait, created in Petkovšek’s final artistic period before, in 1892, he retired permanently to the facility today known as the Ljubljana Psychiatric Clinic. The model’s ascetic countenance is accentuated by sharp facial features and simple garb, while the look on the face, which for a profile painting is naturally pointing away, gives the work a cold feel. His torso is withdrawn and thus, given the direction the face is pointing, looks more opened towards the viewer. The austerity of the composition is tempered by unexpected additions of color (the lighting on the jacket, the green by the subject’s hair, the rather unusually red lips for a man) and the blending of hues on the face, an approach we see in Petkovšek’s Perice ob Ljubljanici (NG S 3504). The background, which suggests what is likely drawn curtains, is merely hinted at.
Profile portraits were, historically speaking, reserved for the aristocracy as a nod to Roman coins and jewelry – the Austrian emperors stamped their guldens and krones with their likeness in the same way; following the Parisian photographer Alphonse Bertillon’s standardization in 1888, arrested prisoners were photographed in the same manner.