Jean-Étienne Liotard

Jean-Étienne Liotard is best known for his pastels: portraits with porcelain smooth faces, crisp fabrics and bright, fresh colour, painted with almost no visible strokes. He believed pastel was more beautiful than any other kind of painting.

Born in Geneva, he travelled widely. From 1738 to 1742 he lived in Constantinople, and afterwards he kept wearing Turkish dress and a long beard, which earned him the nickname “the Turkish painter”. He then worked in Vienna for the imperial family, and later in Paris, London and the Netherlands, before returning to Geneva. His best known work, The Chocolate Girl, a young maid carrying a tray, is in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. His work is also in the Rijksmuseum, the Louvre and the Getty Museum.

A Woman in Turkish Dress shows his interest in Ottoman costume, and Empress Maria Theresa of Austria his work for the Vienna court.