chagalov:

Champfleury may have a good explanation why Baudelaire almost never liked his portraits (starting with the famous one by Courbet).

Un mot de Courbet qui plus tard peignit son portrait, fera connaître la nature extérieure du poète. - Je ne sais , disait le peintre, comment «aboutir» au portrait de Baudelaire; tous les jours il change de figure»
Il est vrai que Baudelaire avait l’art de transformer son masque comme un forçat en rupture de ban. Tantôt sa chevelure ondoyait sur son col en boucles élégantes et parfumées; le lendemain, son crâne nu se teintait de nuances bleuâtres dues au rasoir d’un barbier. Un matin il apparaissait souriant, avec un gros bouquet à la main, semblable à Robesbierre se rendant à la fête de l’Être suprême; deux jours après, la tête penchée, les épaules voûtées, on l’eût pris pour un chartreux creusant sa fosse.
— Champfleury. Souvenirs et portraits de jeunesse (1872) [gallica]

transl. from: Gerstle Mack. ‘Gustave Courbet’ (Da Capo Press, 1989) :

I don’t know how to finish (aboutir) Baudelaire’s portrait; everyday his face changes. (Courbet)
It is true, commented Champfleury, that Baudelaire had the ability to alter his appearance like an escaped convict seeking to evade recapture. Sometimes his hair would hang over his collar in graceful perfumed ringlets; the next day his bare scalp would have a bluish tint owing th the barber’s razor. One morning he would appear smiling with a large bouquet in his hand… two days later, with hanging head and bent shoulders, he might have been taken for a Carhusian friar digging his own grave.

A great reference about the subject:
Heather McPherson. ‘The Modern Portrait in Nineteenth-Century France’ (Cambridge University Press 2001)