LA TOUR

la tour, maurice quentin de (1704-1788), french pastellist, was born at st quentin on the 5th of september 1704. after leaving picardy for paris in 1727 he entered the studio of spoede--an upright man, but a poor master, rector of the academy of st luke, who still continued, in the teeth of the royal academy, the traditions of the old gild of the master painters of paris. this possibly contributed to the adoption by la tour of a line of work foreign to that imposed by an academical training; for pastels, though occasionally used, were not a principal and distinct branch of work until 1720, when rosalba carriera brought them into fashion with the parisian world. in 1737 la tour exhibited the first of that splendid series of a hundred and fifty portraits which formed the glory of the salon for the succeeding thirty-seven years. in 1746 he was received into the academy; and in 1751, the following year to that in which he received the title of painter to the king, he was promoted by that body to the grade of councillor. his work had the rare merit of satisfying at once both the taste of his fashionable models and the judgment of his brother artists. his art, consummate of its kind, achieved the task of flattering his sitters, whilst hiding that flattery behind the just and striking likeness which, says pierre jean mariette, he hardly ever missed. his portraits of rousseau, of voltaire, of louis