# Self-Portrait with Five Muses

- By: Henry Church (American, 1836–1908)
- Date: c. 1880
- Medium: oil on paper mounted to board
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Unframed: 73.3 x 59.7 cm (28 7/8 x 23 1/2 in.)
- Culture: United States, Ohio, Cleveland
- Credit line: Delia E. Holden Fund
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/2012.30)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/cma/2012.30/2012.30_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Lifelong Chagrin Falls resident Church is considered one of the great self-taught artists of 19th-century America. A painter, sculptor, and musician by passion, he offered his appearance and enthusiasms in this highly imaginative self-portrait, surrounding himself with a squadron of miniature winged muses. These figures represent not only the traditional arts of painting, sculpture, and music, but also Church's profession of blacksmithing (identified as a crowned figure holding a hammer and anvil). A savvy entrepreneur, Church launched the first commercial art gallery in northeast Ohio: Church's Art Museum, at Geauga Lake, in 1888. Its inventory consisted entirely of his own work.