Voltaire, after Maurice-Quentin de La Tour

Maurice Quentin Delatour, later known as De La Tour, was born in Saint-Quentin in 1704 and began an apprenticeship in Paris with the painter Claude Dupouch (1719) at a time when the Venetian painter Rosalba Carriera was staying in the capital and making a name for herself with her pastel portraits, sparking a veritable craze in high society that would influence not only her contemporaries but also the next generation.

Maurice-Quentin de La Tour copied Rosalba Carriera’s works, notably her piece for her admission to the Academy in 1721, a nymph from the Apollo series which would have a profound influence on him, particularly in the way the artist would excel in the art of the ambiguous smile and in his delicate palette of pink and blue. Aristocratic and bourgeois patrons grew weary of the rigid, fixed expressions that had become commonplace in court portraiture, and became more keen to capture the fleeting movements of the soul. Pastel, with its fresh and powdery quality, profoundly transformed the art of portraiture in the^18th century.

Following a stay in England, Maurice-Quentin de La Tour received his first major commission in 1735: a portrait of Voltaire, which he completed a year later. Voltaire commissioned his portrait from an artist whose talent was well known, but who had not yet been admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture and had therefore never exhibited a work at the Salon. La Tour first produced two pastel studies for the portrait. One is now held at the National Museum in Stockholm, where the philosopher is depicted facing forwards, whilst the second was acquired by the Antoine Lécuyer Museum, showing a three-quarter profile – the pose ultimately chosen for the final portrait.

Now lost, the original work depicted the subject from the waist up, his torso turned to the right, holding a book in his left hand, with a mischievous look and smile. Even before receiving this portrait, Voltaire requested two good copies, which the artist was to retouch himself, so that they might serve as a prototype for all those produced subsequently. It is these numerous copies, such as the pastel preserved at the Château de Ferney or the oil painting (Antoine Lécuyer Museum), that enable us today to understand the original composition.

This portrait of Voltaire enjoyed enduring fame, to the extent that it became his official portrait, thanks to its circulation as a print, such as the one produced by Étienne Ficquet in 1762. This success is no doubt linked to the fact that Maurice Quentin de la Tour succeeded in truly capturing the writer’s ironic style, thanks to his mastery of the smile and the asymmetry of the eyes: a mischievous right eye, a more composed left eye, and the famous smile, with its thin lips, discreetly cheeky. An intense expression emanates from this charming face.

Quentin de la Tour was admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture shortly afterwards, in 1737, and henceforth took part in the Salon, where he enjoyed considerable success with the public through his portraits of the royal family, men of letters and artists: Louis XV (1748), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1753), and the Marquise de Pompadour (1755). His portraits captivated the public because of the way he managed to capture the uniqueness of each individual’s personality. Whilst facial imperfections are softened, individuality is conveyed above all through the intensity of the gaze and the nuances of the smiles. The artist’s personality is remarkable: ‘La Tour is a rare figure; he delves into poetry, morality, theology, metaphysics and politics. He is a frank and genuine man,’ comments Denis Diderot in his *Salon* of 1763.

In an era intent on precisely describing the slightest movements of the soul in the literary sphere, Quentin de la Tour gives them pictorial expression, thanks to extensive research: ‘What care, what ingenuity, what painstaking research is required to maintain the unity of movement despite the changes wrought upon the physiognomy and in the forms by the succession of the soul’s thoughts and emotions!’ he wrote in a letter to the Marquis de Marigny in August 1763. His art was particularly celebrated in the^19th century, at a time when the charms of art under the Ancien Régime were being rediscovered. ‘In his portraits, the eyes shine, the hair stands on end, the nostrils breathe, and the brow thinks,’ wrote the famous art critic Charles Blanc.

Christine Debrie, ‘Maurice Quentin de La Tour. Pastel portrait painter and Painter to the King (1704–1788)’, Versalia. Journal of the Society of Friends of Versailles, no. 1, 1998. pp. 22–31.

Xavier Salmon, *Le Voleur d’âmes, Maurice Quentin La Tour*, Versailles, Artlys, 2004.