I love discovering old masters of art that I don’t know much about so when I went to the Royal Academy to see Jean-Etienne Liotard’s exhibition I wasn’t sure what to expect but the photos from the show intrigued and I have to say I was really impressed by his amazingly exquisite pastel portraits.

The work of Jean-Etienne Liotard (1702-89) has rarely been shown and this year it has been show at the Royal Academy in the London.

Liotard had a long career and his finest pictures show an astounding hyper-authenticity accomplished through a mix of fantastic, exceptional perception and striking specialized drawing skills. He mastered the art of pastel; additionally he made oil paintings in oil and was a refined miniaturist and printmaker. He was a traveller and adventurer he wrote a treatise on painting, he befriended aristocrats who would be his patrons and was a creative trend-setter when he came back to London and wore his Turkish costumes. He was from the same period of Mozart and Casanova and was a well know figure at the time.

Highlights of the show feature his well-known representations of European aristocrats, startling self-portraits, and fascinating subjects from his travels in Paris, Vienna, Geneva and Constantinople.

Jean Etienne Liotard self portrait laughing circa 1770

House of Hanover, Louisa Anne (1749-1768)

Julie and Isaac Louis de Thellusson, 1760, by Jean Etienne Liotard. Separate portraits of the couple, with her wearing a bracelet with his portrait, and he wearing a signet ring with her portrait.

Portrait of Marie-Rose de Larlan de Kercadio de Rochefort Marquise des Netumieres