Porträt des Richard Pococke (1704-1765)

Richard Pococke was one of the most celebrated travellers and antiquarians of the eighteenth century, best known for his Description of the East (1743–45), an account of his journeys through Egypt, Palestine, Greece, and the Ottoman Empire. The connection with Liotard is significant: both men moved in circles defined by a fascination with the Eastern Mediterranean, and Liotard himself had lived in Constantinople for several years, adopting Turkish dress that he wore throughout much of his later European career. Pococke's portrait in the Geneva collection captures an intellectual figure who, like Liotard, embodied the Enlightenment's appetite for empirical observation of distant cultures. The oil-on-canvas medium suggests this may have been intended as a more permanent, formal record than Liotard's usual pastels. Pococke became Bishop of Ossory in 1756 and Bishop of Meath in 1765, and his portrait likely dates from his years of greatest literary fame in the late 1740s or early 1750s.

Oil on canvas allows a richer tonal range than Liotard's pastel work, with smooth glazed flesh tones and careful attention to the texture of clerical or travelling dress. The composition follows standard three-quarter portrait conventions while Liotard's directness prevents the result from becoming formulaic.