Rosalba Carriera
Nymph from Apollo's Retinue
Pastels
H. 0.30 m; L. 0.20 m
Inv. MA 7683
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Department of Prints and Drawings
© Photo RMN / Gérard Blot
Maurice-Quentin DELATOUR
Head-and-Shoulders Portrait
of Louis XV, (1748)
Pastels on blue-gray paper glued to canvas on a stretcher
H. 0.60 m; L. 0.54 m
Inv. 27615
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Department of Prints and Drawings
© 2005 Musée du Louvre /
Martine Beck-Coppola
La Font de Saint Yenne, author of Réflexions sur quelques causes de l’état présent de la peinture en France (Considerations on Several Causes of the Present State of Painting in France), wrote in 1746:
“Now I come to pastels, an excessively fashionable style of painting, to which Sieur de la Tour has given a vogue and credibility that can scarcely increase. Everyone has taken up these coloured pencils: it is the same for everything that is fashionable here, the public take it up in a frenzy.”
Maurice-Quentin Delatour
Preparatory work for the portrait
of Voltaire, 1736
Pastels
H. 0.36 m; L. 0.28 m
Inv. 1995-6-1
Saint-Quentin, Musée Antoine Lécuyer
© Photo RMN / Gérard Blot
Maurice-Quentin Delatour
Portrait of President Gabriel Bernard de Rieux,
circa 1739-1741
Pastels on joined sheets of blue-gray paper on canvas on a stretcher
H. 2.10 m; L. 1.51 m
Inv. 94 P.C.39
Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum
© The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
Maurice-Quentin Delatour
Portrait of the Artist Jean Restout
Pastels
H. 1.08 m; L. 0.89 m
Inv. 27616
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Department of Prints and Drawings
© Photo RMN / Gérard Blot
Jean-Marc Nattier (1685-1766)
Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson,
Marquise de Pompadour (1722-1764)
as Diana the Huntress
Oil on canvas
H. 1.02 m; L. 0.82 m
Inv. M.V. 9042
Versailles, Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon
© Photo RMN / Gérard Blot
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Denis Diderot, circa 1769
Oil on canvas
H. 0.82 m; L. 0.65 m
R.F. 1972-14
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Department of Paintings
© 2003 Musée du Louvre / Angèle Dequier
Maurice-Quentin Delatour
The Dauphin Louis de France
Pastels
H. 0.32 m; L. 0.24 m
Inv. LT 25
Saint-Quentin, Musée Antoine Lécuyer
© Photo RMN / Gérard Blot
1737
Portrait of Mme Boucher and Portrait of the artist laughing
1738
Portrait of M. Restout drawing a portfolio, Portrait of Mme de ***, wearing a Polish mantelet, meditating with a book in her hand, and Portrait of Mme Restout.
1739
Portrait of M. Dupouch leaning on an armchair and Portrait of Brother Fiacre of Nazareth.
1740
Portrait of M. Bachaumont, Madame Duret, and Knee-length Portrait of M. de *** taking snuff.
1741
Pastel portrait of President de Rieux in red robes sitting in an armchair and Another picture representing the bust of a Negro buttoning up his shirt.
1742
Portrait of the President de Rieux’s wife dressed for a ball, holding a mask, Portrait of Mlle Salé, Portrait of an Abbot sitting on the arm of an armchair, holding a folio up to the light to read, and Portrait of M. Dumont le Romain playing the guitar, with a small bust of the author with the brim of his hat turned down.
1743
Portrait of the Duc de Villars, Governor of Provence, Portrait of M. ***, and Portrait of Mlle *** at the Salon.
1745
Portraits of the king, the Dauphin, M. Orry, Minister of State, his friend M. Duval, and several other portraits with the same reference number.
1746
Four pastel portraits with the same reference number, including a portrait of Mme de Pompadour’s godfather Jean-Pâris de Montmartel.
1747
Several pastel with the same reference number. Portraits of the abbot Jean-Bernard le Blanc, Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville, and the Maréchal de Saxe.
1748
Pastel portraits of the king, queen, dauphin, Prince Edouard, the Maréchal de Belle-Isle, the Maréchal de Saxe, the Maréchal de Lowendal, the Comte de Sassenage, M. ***, M. de Moncrif, member of the Académie Française, M. du Clos, and Mme ***.
“Portrait: the principal merit of this style of painting is the exact resemblance that consists in expressing the character and physiognomy of the persons represented […]. Anything that may contribute to weakening or disguising it is an absurdity; that is why any ornament introduced into a portrait at the expense of the effect of the head is an inconstancy.”
Definition of the term “portrait” in the Encyclopedia, 1751
1753: Charles-Nicolas Cochin's account
“His portraits are all done in a firm, bold manner, and characterise the diverse forms of nature. In these forms, as well as in colours, there are greater or lesser differences; that is why M. de la Tour, a scrupulous imitator of nature, puts so much variety in his portraits. The force of the colour, the effect and the resemblance create an illusion so perfect that it is as if one were seeing the persons they represent.”
Charles-Nicolas Cochin, Lettre à un amateur en réponse aux critiques qui ont paru sur l’exposition des tableaux (Letter to an Amateur in Response to Criticisms that Have Appeared on the Exhibition of Paintings), n.p., n.d.
1760: Claude-Henri Watelet, a man of letters who was close to Madame de Pompadour and the group of intellectuals behind the Encyclopedia, waxed lyrical about pastels in his Art de peindre (Art of Painting, 1760):
Pencils ground to powder imitate colors,
Whose perfect hue gives the brilliance of flowers
Without a brush, the finger
alone places and creates each hue;
The downy paper preserves its print,
Protected by crystal; thus pastels
Have all the brilliance and fragility of beauty.
Jean-Antoine Dassier (after)
Baron de Montesquieu, Philosopher, circa 1728
Oil on canvas
H. 0.63 m; L. 0.52 m
Inv. M.V. 2976
Versailles, Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon
© Photo RMN / DR
Maurice-Quentin Delatour
(Saint-Quentin, 1704 -
Saint-Quentin, 1788)
Portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour
Pastel with gouache highlights on at least eight sheets of blue paper including one for the face, glued to canvas on a stretcher
H. 1.77 m; L. 1.36 m
Inv. 27614
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Department of Prints and Drawings
© Erich Lessing
1755: Pierre Estève criticizes the portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour in his Seconde lettre à un Partisan du bon goût (Second Letter to a Partisan of Good Taste, 1755):
“It is as if M. de la Tour has set out to paint the portrait of a philosopher. So that his bold project did not escape the attention of onlookers, he took care to place it on a table […] of very serious books. Such neighbours do not agree with the pleasant nature […]. In the presence of the Encyclopedia, one is obliged to maintain a grave and severe bearing.”
1763 : Diderot's account
“This La Tour is a rare body, who dabbles in poetry, morals, theology, metaphysics, and politics.”
Diderot, Salon de 1763.
1769 : Diderot's account
“Let us come to the pieces by this artist. Do you know what it was? Four masterpieces enclosed in a pine stretcher, four portraits. Ah! My friend, such portraits, especially that of the abbot! I have never seen such examples of simplicity and truth; not a shadow of mannerism, just pure, artless nature; no pretension in the touches, no affected contrasts of colour, no awkwardness in the position […].”
Diderot, Salon de 1769.
Maurice-Quentin Delatour
Portrait of Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon
Pastels
H. 0.31 m.; L. 0.22 m
Inv. L.T. 37
Saint-Quentin, Musée Antoine Lécuyer
© Photo RMN / Gérard Blot
1750
Several heads in pastel at the Salon with the same reference number.
1751
Several portraits at the Salon, with sitters including Jean-Charles Garnier d’Isle and Antoine Gaspard Grimod de la Reynière.
1753
of Mme Le Comte, holding music paper; Mme de Geli; Mme de Mondoville; Mme Huet with a lapdog; Mlle Ferrand meditating on Newton; Mlle Gabriel; the Marquis de Voyer, Lieutenant-General of the King’s Armies; M. de Silvestre, equerry and principal artist to the King of Poland, director of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture; M. de Bachaumont; M. Watelet, Receiver General of Finances; M. de Nivelle de la Chaussée; M. Duclos, member of the Académie Française and the Académie des Inscriptions; the abbot Jean-Antoine Nollet, physics master to the Dauphin; M. de la Condamine, chevalier de Saint-Lazare; M. d’Alembert; M. Rousseau, citizen of Geneva; M. Manelli, playing the role of the impresario in the opera Le Maître de Musique.
1755
Portrait of Mme la marquise de Pompadour.
1757
Several pastel portraits at the Salon with the same reference number, including portraits of Father Emmanuel and Delatour’s mistress Marie Fel.
1759
Several heads in pastels with the same reference number.
1761
Several pastel portraits with the same reference number at the Salon, including portraits of Louis-Joseph Xavier de France, Duc de Bourgogne, Prosper de Crébillon; the Dauphine Marie-Josèphe de Saxe, and Prince Xavier de Saxe.
1763
Several works with the same reference number, including pastel portraits of the Dauphine, the Duc de Berry, the Comte de Provence, Prince Clément de Saxe, and Princess Christine de Saxe.
1769
Four pastel portraits with the same reference number: portraits of Abbot Réglet, Hubert Gravelot, Patiot, secretary to the Duc de Belle-Isle, and the engraver Laurent Cars.
1770
Several Heads with the same reference number.
Maurice-Quentin Delatour
Marie-Josèphe de Saxe and
the Duc de Bourgogne
Pastels
H. 1.60 m; L. 1.14 m
Inv. LT17
Saint-Quentin, Musée Antoine Lécuyer
© Photo RMN / Gérard Blot
1757: Montesquieu's account
“We find sometimes in certain persons and in certain objects an invisible charm, a natural gracefulness, which has not been hitherto defined, and which we have been obliged to express by the vague epithet Je ne sçai quoi. […] Those graces […] are more frequently centered in the mind, than expressed in the countenance. A beautiful face discloses al once all it’s [sic] charms, and conceals nothing […] The graces are more rarely found in the features of the face, than in the air and manners; for these change every moment, and may therefore every moment produce new objects of surprise. […] gracefulness is neither to be found in those manners that are under the fetters of restraint, nor in those that are the result of a laborious affectation; but in a certain ease, and liberty that lies between these two extremes […]. Nothing strikes us so agreeably in dress, as that negligence and even disorder which conceal the pains that have been taken […].”
Montesquieu, Essay on Taste, tr. A. Gerard. London: A. Millar, 1759.
1784: Charles-Nicolas Cochin's account
“M. de la Tour, having given many signs of delirium which have caused us chagrin and anxiety, has at last been convinced by his brother to retire to Saint-Quentin, his home town, where he was welcomed with gratitude and humanity. Since then, we only rarely hear report of him, but all the reports say he is in the same state.”
Charles-Nicolas Cochin, letter dated 11 July 1784.
1888: Edmond and Jules Goncourt's account
“These heads of La Tour are not alive simply through the truth of their construction, the reality of their drawing, the material illusion of the individual’s physique; the artist and observer grasps the moral of the resemblance […]. Embracing all the individuality of a character, signifying the inner and outer characteristics of the man as a whole, by the usual pose, the natural movement, the spontaneous gesture, even characterising the man’s social status by the marks of his state or the signs of his trade: such was the noble idea and the great dream pursued by La Tour.”
Edmond and Jules Goncourt, L’Art du dix-huitième (Eighteenth-Century Art), Paris, 1881.
Musée Antoine Lécuyer
in Saint-Quentin
© F-X DESSIRIER