As in the title, this unusual miniature work sketch is a self-portrait by the great Vietnamese painter Bui Xuan Phai, and he had done at least two. Drawing himself in profile with a sideburn and a stubble, he seems deeply engrossed painting some scenery outdoor (the thicker jacket worn), with his right hand flicking a brush. He looks perched on a slight vantage point. Bui Xuan Phai, known for his works on actors and musicians of the Vietnamese opera and stark homes in deserted streets of the old quarters of Hanoi, is acknowledged as one of Vietnam’s greatest, who had his tutelage at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de IndoChine in Hanoi (1941-46). After the war, he taught for a spell in the revived Hanoi Fine Arts College in 1956-57. At the age of 20, he sold his first painting, and he gained fame when his painting was selected for an exhibition in Tokyo. In 1958, he was sent to the farm communes for supporting the Nhan Van political cultural freedom, but was ‘rehabilitated’ when he was posthumously awarded the coveted Ho Chi Minh Prize in 1996. He held his first and only solo in Hanoi in 1984. After his death to lung cancer, his son, Bui Thanh Phuong, and his top collector, Tran Hau Tuan, set up a foundation and prize in his name, in 2008.