Self-Portrait

Frazee was thirty-seven years old when he modeled this portrait, but he depicted himself as a much younger man. The herm design, lacking shoulders and drapery, may have been inspired by the similarly constructed portrait of Alexander the Great attributed to Lysippus, fourth century, B. C. (Musée du Louvre, Paris). Frazee was probably familiar with a plaster cast of the Greek work in the American Academy of the Fine Arts, New York. This bronze version of Frazee's self-portrait was cast from a plaster owned by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Now lost, that plaster may have been the one that Frazee showed in the Pennsylvania Academy's 1832 annual exhibition.