In the history of art, Maurice Quentin de La Tour is one of the names that keeps being returned to.
The record lists Maurice Quentin de La Tour as French Rococo portraitist (1704–1788).
Maurice Quentin de La Tour was born at Saint-Quentin in 1704. His recorded nationality is France.
Academies set the rules in this period - what counted as a serious subject, and who was allowed to train.
He worked as pastellist, painter and draftsperson.
His recorded movement is rococo.
Among his best-known works are Portrait of Voltaire and Portrait of Pierre-Louis Laideguive. Looking is a skill, and the artists who last are those who taught their audience how to do it.
That the work was made in France shaped it: artistic traditions, academies and the galleries that decide what is seen have never been evenly distributed.
Maurice Quentin de La Tour died in 1788, aged 84. The work remains, hanging in collections that outlived both the artist and the market that first priced it.
Achievements
- Notable work: Portrait of Voltaire
- Notable work: Portrait of Pierre-Louis Laideguive
- Movement: Rococo
