William Dobson's haunting self-portrait must be saved for the nation

An introspective masterpiece by a rare British painter of the English civil war era, this work deserves a public home where it can speak to our own troubles

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His big dark eyes dream beneath a mane of shaggy brown hair, his ruddy face is moustachioed, and a white cravat is wrapped around his throat under a monastic-looking coat. The man in this painting is a romantic. He looks a bit like the 19th-century painter Gustave Courbet. Indeed, his intensity is not a million miles from Vincent van Gogh. Yet this face was painted more than 200 years before their time – by a British artist.

William Dobson’s Portrait of the Artist, painted in about 1637, goes on sale today at Bonhams in London, and it deserves to be saved for the nation. The painting will almost certainly be bought by a private collector or dealer, but it needs to end up, somehow, in a major British public collection because it is a national treasure.

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Strikingly powerful self-portrait by #WilliamDobson achieves £1,106,500 inc. premium at the #OldMasterPaintings Sale pic.twitter.com/lD1fwt7dQK

Egads! Mine face doth sell for so many ducats!! @bonhams1793 @philipmould @JANUSZCZAK @arthistorynews pic.twitter.com/7qQwhKmFXT

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