Self portrait

[Arizona11]

DAK how self portraits were done historically. I assume a mirror was used. Does that mean that paintings like Rembrandt self portraits are mirror images rather than what they actually looked like in real life?

[XFool]

...From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-portrait#Mirrors_and_poses

[mc2fool]

And even more curious are self-portraits of the artist at work...

Caterina van Hemessen's self-portrait of 1548 is reckoned not only to be the first self-portrait by a female oil painter but also the first self-portrait of an artist (of either gender) at an easel -- and if you zoom in she's just starting on a portrait that looks very much like herself, so obviously in a mirror

Soon followed by Sofonisba Anguissola's Self-portrait at an easel, but wait ... if she's using a mirror then what is vs. should be in the painting in the painting? She's not painting herself!

And then there's Artemisia Gentileschi's Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting; gotta be more than one mirror in use there for her to see and get her head and face from that angle!

And one of my favourite self-portraits (at least, when the NPG is open), Laura Knight with model, Ella Louise Naper ('Self Portrait'). If there was more of the painting to the left, would it be a recursive painting, with her painting itself inside itself inside itself inside itself..... ?