61 JEAN­ETIENNE LIOTARD Swiss, 1702­1789 Maria Frederike van Reede­Athlone at Seven Years of Age, 1755­56 Pastel on vellum 57.2 x 43 cm (22½ x 18½ in.) At top right, signed peintpar/J E Liotard/1755 & 1756 83.PC.273 Portraiture reached its most refined and cultivated state during the eighteenth century. The number of artists whose chief occupation was the painting of likenesses increased, and their subjects began to include members of the burgeoning middle class as well as royal and aristocratic patrons. Born in Geneva, Liotard was trained in Paris, spent time in Rome, traveled with English friends to Constantinople, and then worked for varying lengths of time in Vienna, London, Holland, Paris, and Lyons, generally returning home to Switzerland in between his stays abroad. As his popularity spread, his sitters often came to him, but he remained one of the best­traveled figures of his time. Liotard was a very idiosyncratic artist whose personal habits and dress were unorthodox; he sometimes sported a long beard and wore Turkish costume. His highly individual lifestyle was reflected in his work and sets it apart from that of his contemporaries. In his writings, Liotard insisted that painting should adhere strictly to what could be seen with the eyes and employ the least possible embellishment. Most of his portraits depict royal sitters or members of the aristocracy rendered sympathetically and without pomp or elaborate trappings. The backgrounds are simple or nonexistent, and the sitters often look away as if they were not posing. The portrait of Maria Frederike van Reede­Athlone was painted in pastels, Liotard's favored medium, between 1755 and 1756, when the artist was working in the Netherlands. Initially, he painted a portrait of the young girl's mother, the Baroness van Reede, who then commissioned one of her daughter. Maria Frederike, just seven years old at the time, is shown dressed in a cape of blue velvet trimmed with ermine; she holds a black lap dog, who stares at the viewer. The girl's pretty features and fresh complexion make this one of the most endearing of the artist's portraits. One also sees here the range and spontaneity that Liotard was able to bring to the use of pastels. BF 112 OTHER SCHOOLS