18th Century Pastel Portrait Of A Gentleman
Cotignac, France
£747 per item
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Item details
Height
52.0 cm
Width
41.0 cm
Depth
3.0 cm
Wear conditions
Good
Wear conditions
Excellent
Shows little to no signs of wear and tear.
Good
May show slight traces of use in keeping with age. Most vintage and antique items fit into this condition.
Average
Likely to show signs of some light scratching and ageing but still remains in a fair condition.
Apparent Wear and Tear
Visible signs of previous use including scratches, chips or stains.
Please refer to condition report, images or make a seller enquiry for additional information.
Description
Late 18th Century pastel portrait on paper of a bearded gentleman. Presented under glass in a fine period gilded carved wood frame.
A charming late 18th century French portrait of a gentleman. The artist has very much captured the character of the sitter. His beard and curly hair, a touch of grey just appearing at the temple, his gaze downwards. His costume, a serge overcoat and a finer blue silk undercoat and shirt. The flesh tones are heightened with touches of red to the lower cheek and nose.
Maurice Quentin de La Tour (5 September 1704 – 17 February 1788) was a French painter who worked primarily with pastels in the Rococo style. Among his most famous subjects were Voltaire, Rousseau, Louis XV and the Madame de Pompadour.
The widespread interest in portraits in pastel throughout eighteenth-century Europe was sparked in Paris in 1720–21 by the visit of the Venetian pastelist Rosalba Carriera (1673–1757), the guest of the influential collector and connoisseur Pierre Crozat. Many factors contributed to the resounding reception of the medium at that time and over the next decades. Among them was a new, prosperous buying public—the aristocracy and wealthy financiers who, with Louis XV, began to leave Versailles in about 1715 and established themselves in opulent Parisian hôtels particuliers. To decorate the walls of the small rooms of these luxurious homes they turned to the newly fashionable intimate paintings by seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish artists, contemporary drawings in gouache and red chalk, and their own likenesses, which they commissioned in pastel.
Whereas portraits in pastel were known in the previous century, by 1700 the ready availability of cast plate glass made it possible for these powdery compositions, always requiring surface protection, to be executed on a scale comparable to easel painting, a feature that would contribute to their growing prestige. Pastel's capacity to imitate, if not surpass, the effects of oil led contemporary viewers to regard these works as aesthetically comparable. Many pastelists—such as Rosalba Carriera, Maurice Quentin de La Tour (French, 1704–1788), Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (French, 1755–1842), Francis Cotes (English, 1726–1770) and John Russell (English, 1745–1806)—were accepted into their country’s academy or appointed as pastelists to royalty, a testament to the high regard in which the medium was held.
Condition report:
Condition Report:
Good. Some staining to paper, centre right margin, but does not detract from the image.
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Free collection available
Yes
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- Ships from Cotignac, France
Cancellations and Returns
Last updated: 24th March 2025
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