For the first time in 250 years, Discover Liotard & the Lavergne Family Breakfast reunites the pastel masterpiece by Swiss artist Jean-Etienne Liotard (1702-1789), painted in Lyon in 1754, with the copy in oil he completed in London almost twenty years later. The exhibition opens in the autumn of 2023 at the National Gallery, London.
This is the second in a series of ‘Discover’ exhibitions staged in the National Gallery’s Sunley Room which explore lesser-known works from the collection in a new light.
Long regarded as his masterpiece by both Liotard himself and art historians, The Lavergne Family Breakfast was last exhibited when Liotard brought the pastel from Lyon to London in 1755. It was not shown in public for 264 years before entering the National Gallery’s collection in 2019 from the estate of George Pinto (1929–2018), art collector and patron of the Gallery, under the Acceptance-in-Lieu scheme.
Executed across more than six sheets of paper, The Lavergne Family Breakfast is one of Liotard’s largest and most ambitious pastel works. It shows a breakfast between an elegantly dressed woman and a young girl, whose hair is in paper curlers. Between the two lies a luxurious breakfast still life. Although not strictly a portrait, the sitters have long been associated with relatives of Liotard, the Lavergne family, who lived in Lyon.
Next to this will hang Liotard’s version in oil painted twenty years later (1773, private collection), displayed to the public for the first time. Viewers can appreciate for themselves the differences and similarities in Liotard’s use of these two media, from the velvety texture unique to paintings in pastel which is known in the 18th-century as fleur, to Liotard’s unusual use of impasto in pastel, building up thick layers of the material to create the reflections on the breakfast scene at the centre of the image. No one has seen these two works together since Liotard finished painting the oil in 1773.
Once described by the French philosopher Denis Diderot (1713‒1784) as ‘precious dust’, the delicate pastel medium spread in popularity across Europe during the 18th century. Technological developments meant that pastel crayons could be bought, rather than made by hand, and works in pastel could be displayed more safely in glazed frames thanks to new glass-blowing techniques. The exhibition will introduce viewers to the technique of painting in pastel by showcasing pastel crayons alongside the rough blue rag paper best suited for pastels.
The exhibition also focuses on Liotard’s place in the 18th century as a skilled artist and innovator. Liotard travelled widely, crossing Europe several times throughout his career. He spent four formative years in Constantinople, after which he wore Turkish clothes, grew a long beard and presented himself as ‘the Turkish painter’. A group of black and red chalk drawings made on his travels will illustrate these journeys and the people he encountered, while a selection of self portraits in different media will bring this quirkiest of 18th-century artists to life. Alongside Liotard’s travels, the exquisitely rendered still life at the centre of The Lavergne Family Breakfast will also be examined, with examples of the delicate porcelain painted in the work displayed alongside it.
Exploring the pastel medium, Liotard’s itinerant career, and the stories behind the objects he depicts, this exhibition seeks to put Liotard and The Lavergne Family Breakfast in the spotlight.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated publication and by a programme of events and digital content.
Dr Francesca Whitlum-Cooper, Acting Curator of Later Italian, Spanish and 17th-century French Painting at the National Gallery, says: ‘The National Gallery is incredibly fortunate to have acquired Liotard’s pastel masterpiece for the nation. It is thrilling to be able to celebrate it in this exhibition, and to reunite the pastel and oil versions for the first time in 250 years.’
Exhibition supported by
The Thompson Family Charitable Trust
The National Gallery
Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DN, United Kingdom