Maurice Quentin de La Tour
Maurice Quentin de La Tour
Saint-Quentin 1704-1788
Pastel on blue paper laid down on canvas, the face on a separate sheet of paper glued onto the composition
680 x 577 mm (26.3/4 x 22.7/8 in)
Provenance:
Probably exhibited at the Salon, Paris, 1745, n° 164
Delaherche’s sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 10 and 11 May 1889, lot 176.
Philippe Sichel’s sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 22-28 June 1899, lot 32.
Comte de B.’s sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 9 April 1910, lot 7 bis; where acquired by the family of the present owner.
Literature:
Albert Besnard and Georges Wildenstein, La Tour. La vie et l'œuvre de l'artiste, Paris, 1928, p. 152, n° 281.
Xavier Salmon, "A New Preparatory Sketch by Maurice Quentin de La Tour", The Metropolitan Museum Journal, n° 42, 2007, p. 128-130, fig. 7, illustrated.
Recently discovered and published, this portrait of King Louis XV standing in front of the city of Tournai was probably commissioned to the artist in 1744 by the administration of the Bâtiments du Roi, and exhibited to the Salon the following year. It is therefore the first of two official portraits of the monarch by the artist, the second one being in the Musée du Louvre.