Self-portrait

Artist Maurice-Quentin de La Tour (French, 1704-1788)

Date1737 or later

DimensionsH: 21 3/4 in. (55.2 cm); W: 18 1/8 in. (46 cm)

MediumPastel on board.

ClassificationDrawings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1955.9

Not on View

Label TextOne of more than 16 versions of the same composition, this self-portrait captures the roguish, irreverent personality of Maurice-Quentin de La Tour. The story of the portrait’s unusual pose and laughing expression is recounted by Georg Frederick Schmidt, who made an engraving of the image in 1742. He tells of a friend of La Tour’s coming to visit the artist in his studio. La Tour saw him approaching and locked his studio door. He then went to observe his friend’s disappointment from the window. La Tour depicts himself in the casual clothes and cap of an artist at work, leaning out of the window with a grin at the trick he has played on his friend, while he points in the direction of his studio door. La Tour exhibited the original version in 1737 at the Salon (the official annual art exhibition in Paris), where it immediately made an impact. The image was so popular that La Tour made numerous copies of it, and the engraved version was circulated far and wide.Published References"French Painting: For a New Gallery in the Toledo Museum, Ohio," Illustrated London News, vol. 227, Aug. 13, 1955, p. 271, repr.

"The Age of Versailles for Ohio," Art News, vol. 54, Nov. 1955, p. 31, repr.

Charmet, Raymond, "L'Art Francais au Musée de Toledo," Arts, Spectacles, no. 556, Feb. 22, 1956, p. 14, repr.

Grigaut, P. L., "Baroque and Rococo France in Toledo," Art Quarterly, XIX, Spring, 1956, p. 53, fig. 3.

"French Art (1600-1800)," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 3, no. 4, Autumn 1960, p. 82, repr.

Huyghe, René, Larousse Encyclopedia of Renaissance and Baroque Art, New York, 1964, repr. no. 895, p. 339.

A Guide to the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, 1966, repr.

Watson, F. J. B., "Eighteenth-Century Painting and Decorative Arts," Apollo, vol. 86, no. 70, Dec. 1967, repr. fig. 18, p. 462.

Sewter, A. C., Baroque and Rococo Art, London, 1972, p. 167, repr. p. 166.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, pp. 91-2, pl. 198.

Wintermute, Alan, The French Portrait 1550-1850, New York, 1996, p. 42, fig. 30.

Loche, Renee, Catalogue raisonne des peintures et pastels de l'ecole francaise: XVIe, XVIIe siecles, Geneve, 1996, p. 432.

Debrie, Christine and Xavier Salmon, Maurice-Quentin de La Tour: prince des pastellistes, Paris, 2000, p. 68, n. 91.

Salmon, Xavier, Le voleur d'âmes: Maurice Quentin de la Tour Versailles, Ed. Artlys, 2004, p. 49, n. 11.

Jeffares, Neil, Dictionary of Pastellists Before 1800, London, Unicorn Press, 2006, p. 279.

Exhibition HistoryParis, Salon, 1737 (Liveret, p. 33, "l'auteur qui rit").

Toledo Museum of Art, The Unseen Art of TMA: What's in the Vaults and Why?, September 12, 2004-January 2, 2005.

Comparative ReferencesSee also "Prints and Drawings," The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Report, 1976-78, p. 23.

cf. Debrie, Christine, Maurice-Quentin de La Tour: "Peintre de portraits au pastel"..., Saint-Quentin, 1991, pp. 106, 108.

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