Tea at Trianon: A Masterpiece of the Enlightenment

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, January 21, 2021

A Masterpiece of the Enlightenment

From Christie's:

From London to Constantinople, Liotard was the portraitist of choice for princes, popes and kings. Still owned by the descendants of the sitter, this depiction of Voltaire’s publisher is a sublime example of why his skills were in such great demand

Jean-Etienne Liotard (1702-1789) is occasionally referred to as a ‘journeyman’ artist. However, it would be entirely wrong to imagine him on the move from place to place soliciting commissions. During the 18th century, his services as a portraitist were in constant demand from royals, aristocrats and other elite clients across Europe.

Liotard’s sitters included Louis XV of France, Pope Clement XII, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Marie Antoinette, and the future George III of Great Britain, while he was Prince of Wales.

What made the artist so special? According to the English novelist and art historian Horace Walpole, ‘truth prevailed in all his works’. Which is to say that Liotard was a realist whose ‘likenesses were as exact as possible’. Flattery wasn’t in his repertoire, yet that never diminished his popularity among the eminent figures of his day.

Perhaps most impressive of all was the fact that he worked chiefly in pastel rather than oils. Pastel consists of powdered pigment that’s mixed with a binder to form sticks in various colours; those sticks are then applied to paper or vellum. (Read more.)