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Source Description
Maurice Quentin de La Tour specialized in portraiture, and was praised by his contemporaries for creating uncanny likenesses of his sitters. He often created these works using pastel, a rich and powdery drawing material. He took up the technique for this quickly drawn sketch, created directly in front of his friend, the painter Jacques Dumont. La Tour used the drawing as a guide for Dumont's face in two different large-scale portraits in pastel, one of which is in the Louvre in Paris. During the 1800s this sheet was owned by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, the brothers who, as writers and intellectuals, championed the art of 18th-century France and helped to revive interest in La Tour and other artists from that period.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
151544
label
Jacques Dumont, called Le Romain
core
obj
dtoType
drawing
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
151544
contentType
drawing
title
Jacques Dumont, called Le Romain
description
Maurice Quentin de La Tour specialized in portraiture, and was praised by his contemporaries for creating uncanny likenesses of his sitters. He often created these works using pastel, a rich and powdery drawing material. He took up the technique for this quickly drawn sketch, created directly in front of his friend, the painter Jacques Dumont. La Tour used the drawing as a guide for Dumont's face in two different large-scale portraits in pastel, one of which is in the Louvre in Paris. During the 1800s this sheet was owned by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, the brothers who, as writers and intellectuals, championed the art of 18th-century France and helped to revive interest in La Tour and other artists from that period.
date
c. 1742
citation
rights
CC0
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
wikidata
Q79935214
creators
12148
genreSpecific
Drawing
imageCount
1
source
import
dimensionsRaw
Sheet: 30.8 x 20.8 cm (12 1/8 x 8 3/16 in.)
cul
France, 18th century
accession
1983.89
Source extras
tec
black and white chalk with pastel
tombstone
Jacques Dumont, called Le Romain, c. 1742. Maurice Quentin de La Tour (French, 1704–1788). Black and white chalk with pastel; sheet: 30.8 x 20.8 cm (12 1/8 x 8 3/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1983.89
supportMaterials
description
blue laid paper (partially faded to brown-green)
collection
DR - French
didYouKnow
This drawing resembles two pastel portraits that Maurice Quentin de La Tour made of Jacques Dumont during the 1740s, but one work shows the sitter about to paint, while the other shows him playing a guitar.
citations
citation
Goncourt, Edmond and Jules de. "La Tour (2e et dernier article)."<em>Gazette des Beaux-Arts</em> 22, no. 3 (April 1867): 350-371.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 359
citation
Burty, Philippe. <em>Eaux-Fortes de Jules de Goncourt</em>. Paris: Librairie de l'art, 1876.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 3, under no. 11
citation
Goncourt, Edmond and Jules de. <em>L'Art du dix-huitième siècle</em>. Paris: A. Quantin, 1880.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 285
citation
Goncourt, Edmond de. <em>La Maison d'un artiste</em>. Paris: G. Charpentier, 1881.
page_number
Mentioned: vol. 1, p. 103
citation
Goncourt, Edmond and Jules de. <em>L'Art du XVIIIe siècle</em>. Paris: Bibliothèque Charpentier, 1902.
page_number
Mentioned: vol. 1, pp. 408-409
citation
Bautier, Pierre. "Le Carnet d'un curieux: Trois portraits de Jacques-Jean Dumont, dit le Romain, peintre et graveur, par Maurice Quentin De La Tour." <em>La Renaissance de l'art français et des industriels de luxe</em> 4, no. 7 (July 1921): 7-8.
page_number
Mentioned: pp. 7-8; Reproduced: p. 7
citation
Besnard, Albert. <em>La Tour: La vie et l'oeuvre de l'artiste</em>. Paris: Les Beaux-Arts, 1928.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 140, no. 119; Reproduced: plate CXI
citation
Bouchot-Saupique, Jacqueline. <em>Musée national du Louvre, catalogue des pastels</em>. Paris: Musées nationaux, 1930.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 30, under no. 44
citation
Roustan, M. Mario. <em>Exposition de l'art français au XVIIIe siècle</em>. Exh. Cat. Copenhagen: Palais de Charlottenborg, 1935.
page_number
Mentioned: no. 276
citation
<em>Pastels français des collections nationales et du Musée La Tour de Saint-Quentin</em>. Exh. Cat. Paris: Orangerie des Tuileries, 1949.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 18, under no. 32
citation
Bury, Adrian. <em>Maurice-Quentin de La Tour: The Greatest Pastel Portraitist</em>. London: Charles Skilton, 1971.
page_number
Mentioned: under plate 49
citation
Monnier, Geneviève. <em>Inventaire des collections publiques françaises, Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des dessins, Pastels XVIIème et XVIIIème siècles</em>. Paris: Éditions des musées nationaux, 1972.
page_number
Mentioned: under no. 64
citation
Richards, Louise S. "A Study for a Pastel Portrait of Jacques Dumont Le Romain by Maurice Quentin de La Tour." <em>Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art</em> (December 1984): 341-347.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 341-347
citation
Launay, Élisabeth. <em>Les frères Goncourt, collectionneurs de dessins</em>. Paris: Arthena, 1991.
page_number
Mentioned: pp. 66, 86, 350-351, no. 173; Reproduced: p. 66
citation
Wintermute, Alan. <em>The French Portrait, 1550-1850</em>. Exh. Cat. New York: Colnaghi, 1996.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 95, under plate 9
citation
DeGrazia, Diane, and Carter E. Foster. <em>Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art</em>. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000.
page_number
Mentioned: pp. 106-107, p. 288, no. 39; Reproduced: p. 107
citation
Prat, Louis-Antoine. <em>Le dessin français au XVIIIe siècle.</em> Paris: Louvre éditions: Somogy, 2017. p. 228
page_number
Reproduced: p. 228, no. 388
citation
Salmon, Xavier.<em> Pastels in the Musée du Louvre: 17th and 18th Centuries.</em> <br>Paris: Hazan; Louvre editions, 2018.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 169; reproduced: p. 170, fig. 36
citation
Salmon, Xavier, and Maurice Quentin de La Tour.<em> Maurice Quentin de La Tour</em> : <em>L’œil Absolu</em>. Paris: Cohen&Cohen, 2024.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: p. 191 & 327. fig. 143 & 368
catalogueRaisonne
Besnard 119
creditline
John L. Severance Fund
updatedAt
2026-05-29 07:50:02.042000
sourceId
151544
dept
Drawings
coll
DR - French
med
black and white chalk with pastel
creatorTags
male
thumbnail_url
image_url
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
104a7657dc9da102