Maurice Quentin de La Tour’s bust by Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne

Résumé 0

In 1776, the most celebrated pastel artist of the eighteenth century, Maurice-Quentin de La Tour (1704-1788) created in his native town of Saint-Quentin (Aisne), three institutions to do with the concerns of the times having the aim of establishing a free drawing school, bringing relief to elderly, impoverished and crippled artisans and helping poor pregnant women. In response to a request from the town’s councillors who wished to exhibit his portrait in the townhall so as thank him, he sent over the bust of himself which his friend, the sculptor Jean-Baptiste II Lemoyne (1704-1778), had made. During the following twenty-five years, the terracotta was given full honours, reproduced in plaster and in 1783, more widely disseminated, thus evoking the artist and enabling him to be celebrated in the institutions in Picardy he had founded, supported or to which he belonged. Beyond the plastic figurative achievement of the work itself, its creation, use and multiplication make it a rare art object that is characteristic of Enlightenment practice whilst also illuminating the last years of La Tour. Since the end of the 1880s, the bust has contributed to the fame of the Antoine Lécuyer Museum at Saint Quentin alongside the contents of the studio left by La Tour.