Portrait of Philibert Orry (1689-1747)

Philibert Orry served as Comptroller-General of Finances under Louis XV from 1730 to 1745, one of the longest tenures in that critical role, during which he modernised French road infrastructure through the corvée system. La Tour's pastel of 1737, now in the Louvre's Department of Prints and Drawings, is among the artist's earliest surviving ministerial portraits and documents his access to senior government figures from the very beginning of his Parisian career. Orry was a powerful and not entirely popular figure — his financial rigour made him enemies at court — and La Tour's portrait presents him with the direct, unvarnished quality that would become the artist's signature. The 1737 date is one of La Tour's earliest documented commissions, predating his full court celebrity.

Pastel on paper in La Tour's early mature style. The ministerial sitter required a formal compositional approach, and La Tour manages the balance between official authority and personal character with the directness that distinguished him from more flattering contemporaries. The surface, while less densely layered than his later work, already demonstrates confident technical command.