Self Portrait, Yawning

A yawn is not the sort of thing you expect to see immortalized in oil paint, and that is precisely why this self portrait by Joseph Ducreux still delights people today. Painted in 1783, it shows the French artist caught in a completely unguarded moment, arm flung upward in a stretch, mouth open wide, eyes half shut. During an era when portraits meant powdered wigs and stiff, dignified poses for royalty and aristocrats, Ducreux went the opposite direction and painted himself doing something everybody does but nobody puts on a wall.

Faces fascinated Ducreux, and he spent much of his career studying how feelings and sensations ripple across our features. He created a series of self portraits trying out different expressions, everything from teasing grins to wide surprise. The yawn is perhaps the most universal of them all, since we all know that moment when it simply overtakes us. His bright red coat and loose posture make the scene feel spontaneous, as though he genuinely forgot a viewer might ever see him.

Ducreux was no amateur clown, by the way. He served as a court painter and even sketched Marie Antoinette before her fall. Modern audiences may recognize his work from a different angle, since one of his other self portraits turned into a widely shared internet meme. Whether you find him through art history or a phone screen, his honest and slightly goofy faces have kept their charm for over two hundred years.