Maurice-Quentin de La Tour
Étienne Perrinet, sieur de Jars
1734-1744
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Maurice-Quentin de La Tour
Étienne Perrinet, sieur de Jars
1734-1744
Physical Qualities
Pastel on blue paper, Sheet: 1160 x 851 mm. (45 11/16 x 33 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
The Mary Frick Jacobs Collection
Object Number
1938.228
One of the most famous portraitists of his time, La Tour specialized in 'peinture au pastel,' pastels that imitated the appearance of oil paintings. The velvety texture of pastel was perfectly suited for representing flesh and fabrics, and La Tour's dazzling handling of the medium enhanced the lifelike qualities of his portraits. But it was La Tour's ability to seize a likeness through a fleeting expression which especially drew praise from his contemporaries. In this case, the sitter is momentarily lost in his thoughts as he takes a pinch of tobacco from a 'tabatiere' (snuffbox).
Publication References
Livret de Salon du Louvre, 1740, no. 115.
M. Tourneaux, 'La Collection J. Doucet, etc.', 'Les Arts,' no. 36, p. 14, ill. p. 15.
L. De Fourcaud, 'Le Pastel et let Pastellistes Français au XVIII siecle, etc., 'Revue de l'art ancien et moderne' (1908), XXIV, p. 221.
'L'Exposition de Cent Pastels,' 'Gazette des Beaux Arts,' 1908, II:9.
P.A. Lemoine, 'L'Exposition de Cent Pastels, etc.,' 'Les Arts,' 1908, no. 82, p. 20.
A. Besnard and George Wildenstein, 'LaTour, la vie et l'oeuvre de l'artiste, Paris, 1928, p. 145.
Dr. Henry Barton Jacobs, 'The Collection of Mary Frick Jacobs,' Baltimore, 1938, pl. 11.
Gertrude Rosenthal, 'A Portrait in Pastel by Quentin La Tour,' 'Baltimore Museum of Art News,' December 1948, pp. 2-4, ill. p. 3.
K.R. Greenfield, 'The Museum: its First Half Century,' 'Annual I,' BMA, 1966, ill. p. 22.
Rene Gimpel, 'Diary of an Art Dealer,' NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966, pp. 8, 262, 319.
Neil Jeffares, 'Dictionary of pastellists before 1800,' London: Unicorn Press, 2006, 299.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest, 1938; Mary Frick Jacobs by purchase, 1925; from Rene Gimpel, Paris; Doucet Collection, Paris, by 1908; Edmond Goldschmidt Collection, Paris (before 1901?).
A Century of Baltimore Collecting 1840-1940
Goncourt, 'French XVIII Century Painters,' NY: Phaidon, 1948, chapter XI.
Inscribed: None.