Maurice Quentin de La Tour

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Self-portrait, 1751, pastel on paper

Maurice Quentin de La Tour (1704-1788) was a French portrait painter of the Rococo style, who worked primarily with pastels. Among his most famous subjects were Voltaire, Louis XV, and Madame de Pompadour.

He was born in Saint-Quentin, Aisne, the son of a musician who disapproved of his painting career. At the age of fifteen, La Tour went to Paris where he entered the studio of the Flemish painter Jacques Spoede. He then went to Rheims in 1724, and England in 1725, returning to Paris to resume his studies around 1727. After his return to Paris, he began working with pastels.

In 1737 La Tour exhibited the first of a splendid series of 150 portraits that served as one of the glories of the Paris Salon for the next 37 years. He was able to endow his sitters with a distinctive air of charm and intelligence, and he excelled at capturing the delicate play of facial features.

In 1746, he was received into the Academie Royale and in 1751 was promoted to councillor. La Tour was made portraitist to the king in 1750, a position he held until 1773, when he suffered a nervous breakdown. For a time, the painter Joseph Ducreux was his only student. He founded an art school and became a philanthropist before being confined to his home because of mental illness.

He retired at the age of 80 to Saint-Quentin.