Portrait of a Man Holding a Book, Turned to the Right
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
Dimensions
53 × 45.8 cm (20 7/8 × 18 1/16 in.)
Classification
drawings (visual works)
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
213969
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
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.