This portrait was painted in just two sessions: the first took place in January 2004, the second in March 2005. During the first session, the face was sketched and then painted in oils, whilst all the other details – the body, the chair, the mirror in which the painter’s partial self-portrait with his palette can be seen, and the objects in the studio – were sketched. Over the course of the fourteen months leading up to the second session, the other elements were then painted. During the second and final session, the body, the dress, the sketchbook and the pencil were completed.