Stettheimer never publicly exhibited Self Portrait.... Given the scandalous nature of the work, it is conceivable that those around her were blind to the resemblance. The artist must also have understood the controversy that acknowledging the work as a self portrait would have caused; she included its miniature as a private amusement within another work, Soirée. Soirée’s setting is one of the Stettheimers’ salons, attended by many members of New York’s avant-garde. By the time she painted Soirée, Stettheimer had achieved her fully mature style of “conversation pieces” organized like theatrical sets. The occasion she portrays is the viewing of the artist’s new painting, shown from the back on an easel... Stettheimer, herself, her head at the same angle as in her self-portrait... sits looking out at the viewer, her half-amused expression challenges us to appreciate the irony of... and the blindness of those... (http://hyperallergic.com/329408/florine-stettheimer-feminist-provocateur/)