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Portrait of a Man Holding a Book, Turned to the Right

A work made of black and white chalk, with traces of red chalk, on blue laid paper, rubbed on the verso with vermillion and traced with a stylus.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of black and white chalk, with traces of red chalk, on blue laid paper, rubbed on the verso with vermillion and traced with a stylus.

Date:

1758/62

Artist:

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Swiss, 1702-1789

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.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

Jean Etienne Liotard

Title

Portrait of a Man Holding a Book, Turned to the Right

Place

Switzerland (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1758–1762

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.)

Credit Line

Regenstein Endowment Fund

Reference Number

2012.373

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/213969/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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