Art Institute of Chicago

Portrait of a Man Holding a Book, Turned to the Right

Jean-Étienne Liotard

Date

1758/62

Medium

Black and white chalk, with traces of red chalk, on blue laid paper, rubbed on the verso with vermillion and traced with a stylus

Culture

Switzerland

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Liotard was internationally famous in the mid-18th century for his incisive and resplendent pastel portraits, such as the Art Institute’s Portrait of Marthe-Marie Tronchin . This rare preliminary study of an unknown gentleman reveals some of the artist’s working method: he rubbed the back of the sheet of blue paper with a lush vermilion pastel, to trace and thus transfer the outlines of the figure onto another support.

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