After his first purchase of a painting by Soutine, in 1945, Pearlman acquired several more works by the artist, including this exceptional Self-Portrait. While self-portraits usually show the artist glancing sideways toward a mirror, here Soutine depicted himself full face. The painter’s suit and tie are also unusual, lending him the appearance of a proper bourgeois gentleman instead of an artist at work. On the back of the canvas in front of him is a fragment of a portrait, perhaps also a self-portrait, suggesting a play between the two images.