Maria Fargues, Wife of the Artist

Liotard was already 54 when he married the 29-yearold Marie Fargues in Amsterdam in 1756. This extraordinary portrait – it is one of Liotard’s largest pastels and necessitated the use of two pieces of vellum – was probably done shortly following their wedding. Liotard chose a composition he had first used in a drawing made in Constantinople and had repeated several times in different contexts: it was, indeed, one of the most famous inventions of his persona as ‘Le peintre turc’.