Lot Essay
This previously unrecorded pastel was executed during Liotard's first sojourn in London. The earliest version of the composition, dated 1746, is now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, R. Loche and M. Roethlisberger, L'opera completa di Liotard, Milan, 1978, no. 91, pl. XXI. It shows the artist's niece, Mademoiselle Lavergne, daughter of Liotard's sister Sarah and François Lavergne from Lyon, sitting in a chair, her eyes almost closed. Her costume, that of a Lyonnaise peasant, is described with characteristic zeal: textures are defined and every line of the lacing of her bodice is meticulously observed. The Amsterdam pastel is probably the one shown at the Académie de Saint Luc in 1751 and seen by Reifenstein in 1761 when he visited Liotard's studio in Geneva.
On his way from Paris to Geneva, Liotard often stopped in Lyons, where he could see his family and also use an enamel oven, an art that Liotard learned in his native Geneva, A. de Herdt, Dessins de Liotard, exhib. cat., Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva, pp. 10-1. In the Chancellery in Vienna is kept a small enamel version of La belle Liseuse, dated 1752, Loche and Roethlisberger, op. cit., no. 911, illustrated. Another pastel autograph version, although reduced bust-lenghth, dated the same year as the Amsterdam pastel, had reached the gallery at Dresden as early as 1765 and another version of this is in a Swiss private collection, Loche and Roethlisberger, op. cit., nos. 92-3.
What began as a portrait of the most tender, indeed intimate, kind, soon took its place in Liotard's repertoire of successful designs, and did so at a period when his peripatetic life meant that he had patrons throughout Western Europe - for he worked in Lyons, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Vienna and Geneva. As in the case of La belle Liseuse, the design was soon in demand. When Liotard arrived in London, he was quick to recognize that his earlier Portrait of a lady in oriental Costume bore a close resemblance to one of the most celebrated beauties of the day, Maria Gunning, Countess of Coventry, and he therefore passed the composition off as a portrait of her.
The present pastel establishes that Liotard acted in much the same way with La belle Liseuse. It differs in some respects from the other examples of the pattern: the sitter is placed lower within the composition and is shown with open eyes and as if about to speak. She is perceptibly a woman rather than a girl in late adolescence. We are confronted not with an idealized subject picture but with a specific portrait. The nearly contemporary inscription on the backing identifies the sitter as Miss Susanna Lewis, later wife of Colonel Campbell of Dunoon. In 1754 McArdell realized a mezzotint after a version of La belle Liseuse that would appear to correspond with this rather than any of the other extant versions of the design. In its fifth and sixth states, the print was identified as of being Miss Lewis.
Two further pastels of the composition seem to date from Liotard's final English visit in 1773-4. Both correspond in characterization with the Amsterdam pastel rather than with the present work. One of these in the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel, is the only version other than the present one that shows the sitter with eyes looking up, Loche and Roethlisberger, op. cit., no. 302, illustrated. The other, in a private collection in Melbury, Dorchester, was probably the one sold for nineteen guineas as lot 22 on the second day of the sale held for the artist by 'Mr. Christie, At his GREAT ROOM in PALL-MALL' on Saturday, 16 April 1774, Loche and Roethlisberger, op. cit., no. 301, illustrated. The description leaves no doubt of Liotard's intention that the design should be accepted as more than a portrait: 'A young lady reading a letter habited according to the custom of the South of France'. Despite this statement, one of the later versions was thought at an early date to be of the notorious Elizabeth Chudleigh, Duchess of Kingston.
On his way from Paris to Geneva, Liotard often stopped in Lyons, where he could see his family and also use an enamel oven, an art that Liotard learned in his native Geneva, A. de Herdt, Dessins de Liotard, exhib. cat., Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva, pp. 10-1. In the Chancellery in Vienna is kept a small enamel version of La belle Liseuse, dated 1752, Loche and Roethlisberger, op. cit., no. 911, illustrated. Another pastel autograph version, although reduced bust-lenghth, dated the same year as the Amsterdam pastel, had reached the gallery at Dresden as early as 1765 and another version of this is in a Swiss private collection, Loche and Roethlisberger, op. cit., nos. 92-3.
What began as a portrait of the most tender, indeed intimate, kind, soon took its place in Liotard's repertoire of successful designs, and did so at a period when his peripatetic life meant that he had patrons throughout Western Europe - for he worked in Lyons, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Vienna and Geneva. As in the case of La belle Liseuse, the design was soon in demand. When Liotard arrived in London, he was quick to recognize that his earlier Portrait of a lady in oriental Costume bore a close resemblance to one of the most celebrated beauties of the day, Maria Gunning, Countess of Coventry, and he therefore passed the composition off as a portrait of her.
The present pastel establishes that Liotard acted in much the same way with La belle Liseuse. It differs in some respects from the other examples of the pattern: the sitter is placed lower within the composition and is shown with open eyes and as if about to speak. She is perceptibly a woman rather than a girl in late adolescence. We are confronted not with an idealized subject picture but with a specific portrait. The nearly contemporary inscription on the backing identifies the sitter as Miss Susanna Lewis, later wife of Colonel Campbell of Dunoon. In 1754 McArdell realized a mezzotint after a version of La belle Liseuse that would appear to correspond with this rather than any of the other extant versions of the design. In its fifth and sixth states, the print was identified as of being Miss Lewis.
Two further pastels of the composition seem to date from Liotard's final English visit in 1773-4. Both correspond in characterization with the Amsterdam pastel rather than with the present work. One of these in the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel, is the only version other than the present one that shows the sitter with eyes looking up, Loche and Roethlisberger, op. cit., no. 302, illustrated. The other, in a private collection in Melbury, Dorchester, was probably the one sold for nineteen guineas as lot 22 on the second day of the sale held for the artist by 'Mr. Christie, At his GREAT ROOM in PALL-MALL' on Saturday, 16 April 1774, Loche and Roethlisberger, op. cit., no. 301, illustrated. The description leaves no doubt of Liotard's intention that the design should be accepted as more than a portrait: 'A young lady reading a letter habited according to the custom of the South of France'. Despite this statement, one of the later versions was thought at an early date to be of the notorious Elizabeth Chudleigh, Duchess of Kingston.