Portrait of Madame Anne-Jeanne Cassanéa de Mondonville, née Boucon (1708-1780)
c. 1752
Medium
Pastel on blue-gray laid paper, laid down on canvas and wrapped around a strainer, enlarged by the artist with a band of paper about 3 cm high
Dimensions
66 × 55 cm (26 × 21 11/16 in.)
Classification
pastel
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
155913
Art Historical Context
Maurice Quentin de La Tour’s *Portrait of Madame Anne-Jeanne Cassanéa de Mondonville* captures the refined elegance of mid-eighteenth-century French society. Created around 1752, the work depicts the musician and salonnière Anne-Jeanne Boucon, wife of the celebrated composer Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville. De La Tour, renowned for his luminous pastel portraits of Enlightenment-era elites, brings a sense of vitality and psychological presence to his sitter through delicate layering of color and light. The medium itself is noteworthy: pastel on blue-gray paper, later mounted and enlarged b...