La Tour, Maurice Quentin de [key], 1704–88, French portraitist working in pastel. From 1737 to 1773 he exhibited at the Salon portraits of considerable technical virtuosity and psychological penetration. They brought him an immense and continuing popularity. Among his famous sitters were Louis XV, Mme de Pompadour, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Marshal de Saxe. Most of his work is in the Louvre and in the museum of his native Saint-Quentin.
See biography by A. Bury (1973).
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