Where Is Portrait of Madame de Pompadour? Museum Location

Q: Who painted the Portrait of Madame de Pompadour?

Maurice Quentin de La Tour, the great French Rococo pastellist, created this work between 1752 and 1755. He painted Voltaire, Rousseau, and Louis XV, but this is his most ambitious portrait.

Q: Where can I see this portrait?

The pastel hangs at the Louvre Museum in Paris in the Department of Graphic Arts. At 175 x 128 cm, it's one of the largest pastels ever made.

Q: What books appear in the painting?

The books include Voltaire's Henriade, Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, and volume IV of Diderot's Encyclopédie, which had been banned in 1752. Pompadour presented herself as an ally of Enlightenment philosophers.

Q: Who was Madame de Pompadour?

Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson (1721-1764), the Marquise de Pompadour, was Louis XV's influential mistress. She patronized the arts and Enlightenment thinkers, wielding considerable political influence at the French court.

Maurice Quentin de La Tour spent three years on this monumental pastel portrait, completed in 1755. Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV's influential mistress, appears full-length in a sumptuous French gown adorned with lace and bows. Books surround her, including banned works by Voltaire and the Encyclopédie.

Only her face was drawn from life, on a separate sheet later joined to seven others. The pastel demonstrates La Tour's mastery of texture: pearls, fabrics, paper. Pompadour positioned herself as patron of the Enlightenment philosophers, choosing these controversial books deliberately. Now at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Maurice Quentin de La Tour, the great French Rococo pastellist, created this work between 1752 and 1755. He painted Voltaire, Rousseau, and Louis XV, but this is his most ambitious portrait.

The pastel hangs at the Louvre Museum in Paris in the Department of Graphic Arts. At 175 x 128 cm, it's one of the largest pastels ever made.

The books include Voltaire's Henriade, Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, and volume IV of Diderot's Encyclopédie, which had been banned in 1752. Pompadour presented herself as an ally of Enlightenment philosophers.

Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson (1721-1764), the Marquise de Pompadour, was Louis XV's influential mistress. She patronized the arts and Enlightenment thinkers, wielding considerable political influence at the French court.

Portrait of Madame de Pompadour

Details

Where to See It

The Artist

More by Maurice Quentin de La Tour

Portrait of King Louis XV

Jean Le Rond d'Alembert

Portrait of Maurice of Saxony

Madame de Pompadour

Also at Louvre, Paris

Artemis of Versailles

The Concert: Singer and Theorbo Player

The Combat of Mars and Minerva

Madonna and Sleeping Child with Three Angels

Related Rococo Works

The Swing

The Blue Boy

Reclining Girl

Portrait of Omai

A Young Girl Reading

Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Diana Leaving the Bath

Pierrot (Gilles)

About Portrait of Madame de Pompadour

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