Quentin of the Tower

Maurice Quentin Delatour , more commonly called Quentin of the Tower , born the September 5th 1704 with Saint-Quentin, deceased in 1788 in the same city, is a painter pastellist French (not to be confused with Georges of the Tower, painter of the previous century, nor with Henri Fantin-Latour, painter of the next century.)

Biography

Resulting from a cultivated medium, its original patronym is “Delatour” that the use deformed in “Tower”. It leaves to Paris between 1719 and 1722 in a small academy painting. Starting from 1722, it settles as painter. It meets Louis Boullongne and Jean Restout, this last having a great influence on him. In 1735, it paints the Portrait Voltaire with the pastel, which ensured a great fame to him. It painted thereafter various portraits of Louis XV and its family, as well as her entourage, thus becoming, with Jean-Marc Nattier and Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, the favorite artists of the court. It is then called “the prince of the pastellists” . In 1750, it is named to advise with the royal Académie of painting and sculpture. One is unaware of if it practiced initially the Oil-base paint, only his pastels having been preserved. Its method of fixing of the powder was unfortunately lost.

Work

Like the large portraitists of his time (Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Jean-Etienne Liotard, Rosalba Carriera, Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, Joseph Boze or even Jean Siméon Chardin), Maurice Quentin of the Tower made the choice of the “natural” portrait, alive: the eye of the subject shines, it is, more the share of time, smiling and pleasing, so much so that one can easily think to have it in front of oneself and to know it well. This effect is before all the fruit of the skill of the artist.

Among the famous portraits of Maurice Quentin of the Tower, let us quote: Voltaire, Jean the Round of Alembert, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Louis XV, and Madam de Pompadour… And then Maurice Quentin of the Tower itself since its self-portraits remained very famous.

Principal sites of exposure of its work

  • the Museum of Louvre, with in particular the portrait of the marchioness of Pompadour, completed in 1754,
  • the Museum Cognacq-Jay in Paris, where one can see the portraits of the husband Rieux , painted in (1741 and 1742),
  • the museum Antoine Lécuyer with Saint-Quentin, which comprises the most important collection of pastels of the artist, fruit of a legacy at its birthplace.


See too

Internal bonds

External bonds

  • Biography, virtual Visit of works
  • Maurice Quentin of the Tower in Artcyclopedia

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