Maurice-Quentin de La Tour (1704-1788)

Portrait of a Gentleman, bust-length, turned to the left

Details

Maurice-Quentin de La Tour (1704-1788)
La Tour, M.-Q. de
Portrait of a Gentleman, bust-length, turned to the left
in a gilded carved wood frame carrying the arms of Clement-Augustus, Archbishop of Cologne, Great Master of the Teutonic Order
pastel, oval
17 x 12.3/8 in. (430 x 315 mm.)

Provenance

Alphonse Kahn; Paris, Georges Petit, 6-8 December 1920, lot 119, illustrated.
Comte Edm de la Rochefoucault; Sotheby's Monaco, 19 June 1989, lot 375.

Literature

A. Bernard and G. Wildenstein, La Tour, La Vie et l'Oeuvre de l'artiste, Paris, 1928, no. 894.

Lot Essay

This pastel has been compared to the portrait of M. Garnier de L'Isle now at the Fogg Art Museum. Yet the similarity of features stops at the colour of the eyes, clearly blue in the Fogg version. It has been suggested that the sitter could be Garnier de l'Isle's nephew, Pierre Mirleau de Neuville.