Simon Benninck never travelled to England, but his daughter was one of a small band of manuscript illuminators (illustrators) who moved from the Low Countries to London in order to work for King Henry VIII. As the invention of printing gradually made both the manuscript and its illumination redundant, illuminators drew on the tradition of secular naturalism to produce equally exquisite small portraits. Thus the techniques used by Benninck in his illuminations are no different from those used in this self-portrait. A sloping easel was used for painting both portraits and more traditional subjects, such as the Madonna and Christ Child. Both illuminators and miniaturists worked by natural light and without magnification, although Benninck’s glasses hint at the strain of such intricate work.