Carl Gustaf Plagemann’s career took him from his home in Södertälje via Copenhagen to Florence in the 1830s. A couple of years later he reached Rome on foot. The same year, the artist painted this self-portrait, dressed as a knight and with a red cloth around his head. When the political temperature rose in 1849, Plagemann left his studio and enlisted on Garibaldi’s side in the struggle for Rome against the French.