Liotard: A Portrait of Eighteenth-Century Europe

Jean Etienne Liotard (1702-1789) was one of the most accomplished, idiosyncratic and witty artists of 18th-century Europe. Born in Geneva, he pursued a remarkable career, travelling across the continent and the Near East, portraying a riveting cross-section of society. Liotard worked in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Venice, Constantinople and Vienna and excelled as a specialist in the delicate art of pastel. He became renowned for the uncanny realism of his portraits as well as the beauty of his drawings, while also experimenting with watercolour, oil painting, printmaking and enamels. In Britain he enjoyed notoriety because of his exotic persona, and received commissions from royalty, aristocrats, grand tourists and celebrities.

LIOTARD: A Portrait of Eighteenth-Century Europe plots the career and practice and reputation of an extraordinary artist who deserves to be better known. This new study throws light on the wider cultural environment he navigated, illuminating connected themes, including fashion history, orientalism and the promotion and display of portraits in the public and private spheres of Enlightenment Europe.

Christopher Baker is an art historian, curator and author; he has been a Director at the National Galleries of Scotland and worked at Christ Church, Oxford, and the National Gallery in London. Christopher has also held Visiting Fellowships at Yale University and the British School in Rome and organised numerous highly successful exhibitions in the UK. and internationally, chiefly on 18th and 19th century British and European art and the history of collecting.