Maurice QUENTIN DE LA TOUR ✿

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

Maurice Quentin de La Tour was born in San Quentin in 1704. He trained in Paris in the studio of J-J Spoede. He specialized in the pastel technique becoming a portraitist of Parisian high society and of the king.

In 1737 he made his debut at the Paris Salon with a portrait of Madame Boucher and with his self-portrait of her until 1756. He founded a school for drawing in his native Saint-Quentin and donated towards impoverished women in confinement and disabled and ageing artisans and artists. He was also advisor and benefactor to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris.